The Gendered Ties That Bind the ‘New Global Governance’ to the ‘New Information Economy’

Associate Professor Lisa McLaughlin

CENTRE FOR CRITICAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES
PUBLIC SEMINAR SERIES

Thursday 20th April, 2.00-3.30pm

CCCS Seminar Room, Level 4, Forgan Smith Building, University of Queensland St Lucia Campus

As the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) illustrates, the ‘new multi-stakeholderism’ and public-private partnerships work in concert to advance the ‘corporatization’ of international development initiatives. In this presentation, Assoc Professor McLaughlin maintains that the gender mainstreaming advocated by the UN and various gender-oriented organizations necessitates that summits such as the WSIS actively include gender advocates who adhere to formal, governmental modalities while passively excluding those who actively oppose market-led approaches to development, and she will link this to an agenda in which women of the Global South are offered the potential for emancipation and mobility through access to technology but instead are apt to become place-based informational labor.

About the Presenter:

Lisa McLaughlin is an Associate Professor at Miami University-Ohio, USA, where she holds a joint appointment in Mass Communication and Women’s Studies. She is also Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Arts in Mass Communication Program. McLaughlin is editor of Feminist Media Studies, an international peer-reviewed journal published by Routledge. She teaches courses in international communications, global media governance, and feminist media theory and practice. Her recent work focuses on ICTs and the corporatization of development as it has emerged under the auspices of the United Nations. At present, McLaughlin’s research concentrates on Cisco Systems’ Networking Academy Programs and the corporation’s Gender Initiatives that have originated as public-private partnerships brokered through the UN.

Members of the university community and the general public are invited to attend this free seminar with refreshments to follow. For further information please visit the website at http://www.cccs.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=42734&pid=16094