Summary of E-Discussion on Women’s Political Participation in 21st Century: Using Communication Technologies

LAUNCH MESSAGE

Women and men around the world have been using different technology platforms during their political campaigns and to continue dialogue with their constituencies as elected representatives. The recent United States elections and victory of Barack Obama displayed to the world innovative usage of new technologies for political campaigning, mass mobilization and fundraising. Political leaders are catching on to the crowd sourcing possibilities that these technologies offer, many politicians have their own weblogs, facebook pages and twitter accounts. Use of text messages to alert journalists and to create viral campaigns during public rallies, televised debates and press conferences has gained currency. Youtube videos are supplementing paid television spots for political messages without depending on mainstream media sources. Political activists are using these social networks to organize in person rallies and disseminate information on public policy issues. Citizen-government interactions through online surveys, discussion forums and platforms are being increasingly employed to increase public engagement and accountability.

The 21st century has seen an unprecedented increase in the percentage of internet users around the world. Out of China's 1.3 billion people, 29 percent of are now internet users, 48.5 percent of Iran’s population are internet users, in Latin America and the Caribbean 30.5% of the current population use internet, the increase in internet users from 2000 to 2009 has been the highest in the African continent approximately 1392.4%. Over 350 million users of facebook communicate across borders every day, spending close to 10 billion minutes on the social networking site every day. According to a recent report, at least one-half of the world’s population has a mobile phone which is increasing every day. These are just some of the statistics that show the ever increasing presence of some form of technology in our daily lives. According to statistics provided by the International Telecommunication Union, the digital divide in 1994 between the developed and developing countries was 73 times more, where as in 2004 it was only 8 times more, “the most stunning feature of the divide is not about how large it is, but how rapidly it is closing”.(Fink, C. and Kenny, C 2003).

The impact of this increasing penetration by technology has already been felt in the development sector. For instance, African entrepreneurs are obtaining microcredit loans, doctors from India can diagnose patients in Ethiopia and the recent ‘green movement’ in Iran was largely organized online and via SMS messages, to name a few. The staggering distribution channels available through youtube, podcasting, facebook, twitter and other networks, the reach of technology to masses has never been so pervasive.

iKNOW Politics members have vast experiences in using online platforms and we want to take this opportunity to invite our members to share their experiences of innovative examples in which women are using technology in politics; to get elected, build constituency or dialogue with each other to enter politics and enhance their effectiveness in public life. We are looking for your input on the following questions:

What are some examples of women candidates supplementing traditional communication technologies (i.e.: radio, public address system, television) with new technologies (mobile phones, youtube, social networks) in order to get elected?

How are political parties using viral effects of technology for fundraising, volunteer recruitment, , messaging and outreach to voters – and how can women in these parties benefit from these innovations?

Please share some examples of women leaders and governments using technology to engage their constituencies and channel public voices within legislative processes.

How are women’s groups and civil society organizations innovating with technologies to disseminate information and generate discussion to influence public policy?

We look forward to hearing your views on some/all of these questions and sharing your experiences on this important issue with our users worldwide.  

PARTICIPATION

During the two weeks of the E-Discussion, iKNOW Politics received 58 comments from its members and experts worldwide. 16 comments were received in English, 16 in Spanish, 2 in French and 2 in Arabic along with cross posting 22 comments between the four languages. Contributions were received from 17 countries: Argentina, Australia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, Senegal, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Kingdom and Yemen.

DISCUSSION SUMMARY

During the E-Discussion participants reflected on the four questions above to guide their contributions regarding the use of communication technologies by women in politics. The following is a summary of the discussion that took place.

Role of Media and Use of Communication Technology

There is no denying the unequal treatment meted out to women candidates by media around the world. All participants of the discussion agreed that the stereotypical portrayal of women in politics and leadership position deters those interested in persuing politics. Women are still largely excluded from traditional media, making it necessary for women to employ newer communication technologies to reach their constituencies.

The use of new media and communication technology in a campaign is an important factor in the success or failure of a political campaign. There are good strategies to help women succeed and others that can lead to unexpected failure of the election campaign. Maryam Ben Salen from Morocco shares the findings of a research conducted by CAWTAR and UN-INSTRAW in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

“One of the ways in which women politicians have been countering this disequilibrium in media coverage is by increasing their visibility through the use of New Information and Communication Technologies or NICTs. In our fieldwork conducted through workshops, meetings, conferences, debates, and focus groups with politically active women at local and national levels in the three countries, we observed women’s willingness to go beyond traditional communication outlets such as television and radio to adopt more direct and interactive communication tools that include facebook, SMS, promotional videos, podcasts, and blogs. The latter proved to be very effective, eliminating the use of intermediaries in communication and allowing the women themselves to be ‘the news makers’.”

Piyoo Kochar from India concurs with Maryam. From the experiences of using new communication technology in Indian elections, Piyoo recounts, one key lesson that was learnt in 2004 general elections in India was that,

“Engaging and building constituency through using a combination of communication technologies offers women candidates an opportunity to not only reach the constituency that would otherwise not have been reached but also "eliminate the use of intermediaries in communication and allowing the women themselves to be the news makers" as Maryam Ben Salem points out in her comments. (Maghreb experiences). Recruiting volunteers for different tasks that can be from getting first time voters, promoting the candidates agenda and social media profiles, translating sections of the website, designing banner ads, and helping out with other campaign work are some of the various benefits that these new technologies offer.”

Barriers to participation

Women’s political participation around the world confronts common obstacles in the face of a largely male dominated field, with little to few opportunities for women to be considered for party nominations, or access to financing women’s political campaigns. Gloria bonder summarizes these challenges based on research conducted in Latin America:

“1. political parties, a culture of patriarchy predominates, which is continually repeated with little modifications. 2. Electoral systems tend to be discriminatory against women. 3. In general, affirmative action measures for women’s participation are “formally” complied with, and are sometimes implicitly or explicitly violated. 4. There are limitations in accessing funding for electoral campaigns. 5. Women’s presence in political offices does not “mechanically” translate into the adoption or advocacy of women’s demands and interests.”

There are several stereotypes regarding women’s political participation. Women are rarely seen as natural leaders in political or representative roles or in decision-making positions. Instead, they are still depicted as not interested in politics, and consequently are unable to be involved in politics along with men.

Susana campari indicates this in regard to quotas,

“The difficult part is actually reaching areas where politices are defined, reaching direction and management positions in political partieis. There women are continually fewer and fewer.”

Katia Pérez however points to the significant developments across the world on women’s political participation and states the need for increasing women’s participation at all levels of government and society as an important barrier to overcome. According to Ms. Pérez political parties are an enabling force in ensuring women’s presence both in the parties and in governments.

According to most participants, the stereotypes regarding women’s political participation also translates to other aspects of running for political office. Participants agreed that male politicians are more likely to use new communication tools to reach out to their constituency. They are generally the first users of websites for building their presence online, social networking platforms, mobile phones to raise awareness about their campaigns, for fundraising and even recruit volunteers, more than women according to some. Jocelynne Scutt notes:

“However it is a question whether their contributions sustain ongoing responses through blogs, etc. it may be the case that the e-sites which have the ongoing discussion are those of the leaders - that is, prime minister and premiers, and leaders of the opposition - most of whom are male.”

Lack of access to resources is another common barrier to participation according to most participants, however this gets perpetuated by the stereotype that presupposes that women are less interested in technologies and therefore unable to use the power of new communication technologies in their political campaigns.

Jocelyne Scutt raises the point

“it also raises the issue of whether women are likely to be 'behind' all the time - because of the difficulties women face, due to sex/gender, in education access, $$$$/££££ etc access, 'control' factors within the family - where male 'partners' are reluctant to 'allow' their wives/spouses/'partners' to have access to education, $$$$/££££ etc.”

Enabling Access

Removing barriers to access is according to most participants paramount necessity to enabling women candidates and politicians to fully capitalize on the benefits that new communication technologies afford in the 21st century. Changheong Choi from Korea believes that enabling access to technology is not only in keeping with the times but “technology oriented election is cheaper than a traditional one”.

Participants shared several innovative ideas and programmes wroking to provide access for women politicians and candidates to different communication technologies to assist them in their campaigns.

Maryam Ben Salem shared her organizations’ programme:

“UN-INSTRAW/ CAWTAR project is organizing training workshops targeting active women in politics to enhance their skills in communication (communication techniques, elaboration of a communication strategy) and to teach them how to use innovative tools for achieving practical and strategic objectives for women’s advancement: the use of mailing to advertise programs to voters and establish a direct relationship with them, SMS campaigns, promotional videos posted in internet and facebook fan groups to get more visibility etc.”

John Cropper from Oxfam shared their programme which is working in 17 countries around the world.

“We have started an e-communications strategy using ning as the main content platform http://raisinghervoice.ning.com as this is an easy platform to work with (it's also free!). Ning has apps that allow us to push content onto twitter and facebook.”

Jocelynne Scutt suggests “member of parliaments having in their electorate offices a certain number of ‘public access’ computers so that constituents can come in to use the system without charge”. She shares the experience from government offices in Tasmania where the computer access is available for use by women from the community for no cost. Joscelynne adds:

“Free lessons provided by government to those who want to learn e-mail systems, google, facebook, etc technology” and “collectively work to ensure that Women's Units or Women's Departments in government set as a priority ensuring that women gain access to technologies so as to use them for campaigning and for gaining political information”.

Successful use of communication technologies:Examples from around the world

Around the world women politicians have been using different communication technologies in their political campaigns. Fatima Sadiqi shares the experiences from North Africa

“I must say that women's groups and civil society organizations in North Africa are still relying on the use of fax and phone to disseminate info. Some of these groups are aware of the importance of newer technologies in promoting their ideas and, hence, often organize workshops or seminars to sensitize their members to the importance of e-campaining, etc.”

Dr. Sandrine Simon points out that particularly in North Africa women in urban areas are acquiring skills and awareness regarding the power of new communication technologies in politics. She however points out that these communication technologies need to be understood as all inclusive of both traditional and new media as the rural urban divide will warrant the contextual use of different technologies and women politican’s use of those different communication means.

“I think it is important to appreciate a) the various dimensions of 'ICTs': they include the www but also television (and the hundreds television channels all these satellite dishes that resemble funny 'fields' on medina's roof tops allow people to watch), radio, mobile phones, etc.”

Alexander Casas points to the use of communication technologies in Peru:

“In Peru, the first virtual communication tool based on a dynamic platform was Hi5 (111.hi5.com), where many people still have an account today.  Later, blogs appeared (www.blogspot.com).  One of the first women to take advantage of starting a blog was Susana Villarán (“Fuerza Social” or Social Force), using it to disseminate her professional work rather than as a political campaign tool, later having three facebook accounts in her name.”

Hon. Ndey Fatou Toure from Senegal shares her personal story of the power of communication technologies for impacting women’s political campaigns:

“A first example of women using new communication technologies such as mobile phones and websites constitutes myself and my electoral campaign of 21 days, in May 2007, for the parliamentary elections of June 3, 2007.  I was heading the national list for our party, as the first female head of a national list in Senegal.  Every day of my campaign, I was offered three minutes on national tv, just like the men heading the other lists, to convince voters.

Various press agencies and citizens took to the internet to support my campaign, and to encourage and congratulate me.”

Hon. Ndey Fatou Toure continues to recount successful use of new communication technologies by other women politicians in Senegal by mixing the different technologies accessible to women voters and their constituents.

“At the local elections of March 22, 2009, candidates such as Mdme. Aminata Mbengue Ndiaye (former minister) and Mtre. Aissata Tall Sall (former minister and lawyer) have used mobiles phones to encourage voters, in addition to more traditional channels. They were elected Mayors of big cities.”

There are several women politicians who have been ahead of the curve, so to speak, in the use of technologies that were helpful to them in their campaigns and also set the path not just for other women but for male politicians as well on how to embed new technologies in their political campaigns. Vida Jane Mary Goldstein, an early Australian feminist politician who campaigned for woman suffrage and social reform was one of the first woman to stand for Parliament in any country who was the first to use available communication technology tool in her political campaign. Jocelyne Scutt shares her colleague’s research:

“Karen’s research discloses that Vida Goldstein was the *first* political candidate - female or male - to use the 'Magic Lantern' technology which was an early precursor to (for example) PowerPoint. Vida Goldstein was the first woman to stand for Parliament in any country. She did so in four (4) elections [last election of 1914] and gained a huge percentage of votes although she did not get into Parliament. I relate this story because it is important that we as women know our roots and recognise that we stand on the shoulders of strong, brave, courageous and *imaginative* women of the past, who would be cheering women on in our endeavours to use the 'new' technologies to advance women's rights.”

Women politicians around the world are using different communication technologies to their advantage. Gia from Trinidad and Tobago shares a recent example from her country.

“For the first time in our country since January 24, 2010 we have the first woman as political leader of the opposition, she used the radio and TV in her campaign – however now that she advocated and got the Prime Minister and his party to fall – elections have been called two and half years before it is constitutionally due...”

With the increasing presence of communication technologies in our lives, women politicians are slowly but steadily understanding the import of their use to communicate with constituency. Women candidates are progressively using the new communication technologies to garner support from constituencies and use that to leverage support from from political parties for their candidacy. Teresa Chara de los Rios from Peru, shares

“Today, we see that candidates’ tendency is now to use blogs to address and inform electors of their activities. One of the first women politicians to use facebook was Lourdes Flores Nano, who is not yet an official candidate, though she is already in campaign and addressed the population with the following motivating question: “My possibility of running for Mayor of Lima is being speculated, what do you all think?” I don’t have the exact figure of how many people visited her facebook page and gave their opinion, but according to the way Lourdes has been campaigning, it can be deduced that she will run for Mayor of Lima.”

Aurea López from Peru also points out the significant use and presence of women politicians on facebook has generated both debate and interest amongst the voting constituents of Lima. Aurea López shares another successful integration of social networking in political campaigns by women politician

“Susana Villarán is example of candidate running for Mayor of Lima who currently use social networks, including facebook, in order to communicate with followers and opponents and as way to recruit volunteers.”

Karla Mariana Durazo from Mexico notes that the use of technology by women candidates has become indispensable today. Pointing to internet penetration and usage trends from Indoneisa Alwin Khafidhoh agrees with Karla. She states

“The younger the age of growing number of facebook users. This will determine that internet usage trends 20-30 years ahead could be an alternative means of struggle for women’s groups.”

Sally El Baz a young politician from Egypt shares the genesis of their party, “which attracted more than 3000 members through its group on Facebook. The party managed to attract many youth and encourage them to have positive attitude towards politics.”

Cautions about new Communication Technology

According to all participants the single biggest mistake when considering integrating new communication technologies in their political campaigns is to either expect miracles by using these communication tools or to completely abandon them as fads or futile. Piyoo Kochar from India points out that

“Internet penetration and usage across the world and particularly in Asia, Africa and even Latin America is not enough to merit 'sole dependence' on using new technologies as vehicles of communication for political candidates or for that matter even for corporate marketers.”

Teresa Chara de los Rios from Peru points out the difference in reality of constituents in the rural and urban areas. She says:

“Our rural population still likes candidates to visit their areas in person, to converse with them and be able to directly tell them their hopes and concerns.”

However she points out that there needs to be further research to measure the impact of using different communication technology tools in elections, especially municipal and regional elections.

“I do no doubt that there are currently men and women candidates that use social networks and email to disseminate their proposals, but their target public will be minimum in comparison with the majority of electors in the region. Generally youth and professionals are the electors that have access to virtual communication. The upcoming... election will be an opportunity to measure the impact of that new information communication technologies have on elector’s decisions”

Alexander Casas Flores from Peru points out another cautionary aspect of using new communication technologies which is to use communication technologies to build a two way communication channel with the electors as an important aspect.

“Will electors only want to be consulted on decisions that in the end will not necessarily be accepted? I do NOT believe so, rather I think the electors seek to dialogue (both listen and speak) with candidates or women politicians that use these tools.”

CONCLUSION

During this E-Discussion participants agreed that the potential of new media and information communication technologies in the 21st century does portend to greater integration in political campaigns for women. However the questions relating to access and ease of use will need to be negotiated between those who have access and those who don’t, before women politicians become comfortable with using these technologies. The participants also highlighted the illustrious path generations of women politicians have paved in using appropriate communication tools both technological and traditional/cultural in their campaigs. From magic lanter, to e-newsletters for widescale dissemination of information about their campaigns women politicians have been quick on the uptake. There are obvious pitfalls in solely relying on any one method of communication especially a technological one and participants of the discussion want women politicians to better integrate the tools depending on the constituency and outreach. Most participants agree that there is no substitute for face to face campaigning and communication, but also point out that these new technologies offer women politicians to reach a larger youth audience and those previous disaffected by politics and politicians. Use of innovative means of communication including both traditional and new social media offers women leaders possibility to work on tight budgets which is essential given the challenges to fundraising for campaigning. With training and better understanding of potential of new technologies, the path for greater use of communication technology in politics has been open wide.

PARTICIPANTS

Sally El Baz, El Sadat Association, Egypt

Gloria Bonder, Gender, Society and Politics Area, FLACSO, Argentina

Jocelynne Scutt, Australia

Dini Afifah, Indonesia

Alwin Khafidhoh, Indonesia

Fatima SadiqiProfessor of Linguistics and Gender StudiesMorocco

Sandrine SIMON Lecturer at the Open University, UK

Teresa Chara de los Rios, Peru

Alexander Casas Flores, Peru

Ndey Fatou Toure, Senegal

Piyoo Kochar, iKNOW Politics, USA/India

Graziella Robino Graziella Robino, Japan

Gia, Trinidad and Tobago

Maryam Ben Salem, Tunisie

Changhaeng Choi, South Korea

John Cropper, UK

Jason Brown, New Zealand

Mary King, Trinidad & Tobago

Aurea López, Perú 

Norma Pozzo, Argentina 

Evelin Granda, Perú 

Susana Campari, Argentina

Blanca L.Gordillo, México

Karla Mariana Durazo, México

Angélica Enríquez, México

Katia Pérez, Panamá

Gia Gaspard Taylor, Trinidad & Tobago

Ramzia Abbas Aleryani, Yemen

 

Bibliography (from iKNOW Politics Libary)

Empowering Parliaments through the Use of ICTs (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/21007)

Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women through ICT (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/6549)

Gender and the Information Revolution in Africa (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/9626)

Information and Communications Technology: The Gender Dimension (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/103)

Gender in the Information Society: Emerging Issues (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/6737)

Gender and ICTs (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/1005)

Women's Rights in Focus: Egypt (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/1353)

Empowerment Through Technology: Gender Dimensions Of Social Capital Build-Up In Maharashtra, India (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/2096)

Handheld computer tech in volunteering/advocacy (http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/3958)