Research

This study examines the content of MySpace pages to reveal the types of personal information users disclose on their pages and the types of communication users engage in via through their MySpace accounts. The researchers performed a traditional content analysis on MySpace user profiles to learn about user characteristics and about the types of content posted on profiles pages. Findings showed a clear pattern of use of the site for creating and developing personal identities and relationships online. Findings show a high degree of control by users over private information, with very few users posting personal information such as telephone numbers and addresses. The results of this research contribute to an understanding of the use of MySpace as a social networking site, a communication tool, and a means of self-disclosure and identity formation.

In this article, I argue that online social networking is anchored in surveillance practices. This gives us an opportunity to challenge conventional understandings of surveillance that often focus on control and disempowerment. In the context of online social networking, surveillance is something potentially empowering, subjectivity building and even playful - what I call participatory surveillance.

 Facebook Inc. has grown 153% during the past year, propelled by the soaring growth of new in virtually every market outside North America, according to a report on social networking released Tuesday by ComScore Inc.

While the growth in the number of new social networking users leveled off to 9% in North America between June 2007 and June 2008, growth in several other regions soared by well over 30% during the same period, according to the ComScore report. For example, the number of new users in the Middle East and Africa grew by 66% during the year, while usage in Europe grew by 35% and in Latin America by 33%, the report noted.

Is there a direct connection between empowerment and access to information and communication technologies? Patricia Litho interrogates this question through the CEEWA ICT project case study in rural Uganda. She examines the conceptualisation of empowerment, and its relationship with infrastructure, skills, connectivity, access and participation.

Development Plans (IDPs), produced as a statutory requirement by all municipalities, are local planning processes that are intended to give strategic direction to the work of municipalities. Increasingly, they are being seen as a forum for achieving links between spheres of government and facilitating co-ordinated planning, budgeting and implementation. But are national gender policy directives and guidelines adhered to within local government, in IDP processes and outcomes, and in implementation, and do they benefit women? These are some of the research questions the Human Sciences Research Council aims to address in a study by analysing national and provincial (KwaZulu-Natal) support to local government on gender and integrated development planning. National guidelines and targets are helping to ensure that women benefit from local projects even where local politics and governance processes marginalise women’s voices, ALISON TODES, PEARL SITHOLE and AMANDA WILLIAMSON found during this research project that formed part of an international initiative by the International Development and Research Centre, Canada (IDRC).

Antenatal care provides an opportunity to inform and educate pregnant women on a variety of issues related to pregnancy, birth and parenthood. The aim of this exercise is to equip them to make appropriate choices that will contribute to optimum pregnancy outcome and care of the newborn. This concept has made antenatal education programmes a standard component of antenatal care worldwide.

There has been controversy about the impact of antenatal education on pregnancy outcome. However, a recent synthesis of experience with information, education and communication (IEC) makes the point that it works. In other words, an appropriate strategy of IEC leads to or reinforces desirable attitudes and behaviour.

Educated women have better pregnancy outcome compared with uneducated women. This may be partly because they are better informed and make better choices. Literacy among women in many developing countries is low and there are socio-cultural beliefs and practices with adverse effects on pregnancy and birth even among educated women. The "Three Phases of Delay Model" highlights the importance of IEC in the prevention of maternal death by describing the sequence of events from late recognition of danger signs to maternal death. Therefore, an appropriate programme of health literacy or behaviour change communication is highly desirable.

eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.

"This population will comprise current online social networkers who are extending their digital lives to mobile as well as a growing number of mobile-only social networkers," said John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the new report, Mobile Social Networks. "Early reports suggest strong user demand for mobile social networks."

For example, MySpace recorded over 7 million unique visitors to MySpace Mobile in the US in the six months since launch. "It wasn't until we rolled out m.myspace.com that we got a sense of how powerful demand was for MySpace on cell phones," Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development for MySpace, told eMarketer.

If Slide and RockYou, two of the fastest-growing Web businesses, are any barometer for the future, the Internet is going to look pink. In other words, the future of social media is going to be all about the women. So if you're going to create the next hot Web 2.0 site and you want it to go viral, you'll target women.

It's no shock that men and women act differently online, just as they do in everyday life. The Web is an extremely social medium, and Web 2.0 is all about being social. Traditionally, men are the early adopters of new technologies. But when it comes to social media, women are at the forefront. At Rapleaf we conducted a study of 13.2 million people and how they're using social media. While the trends indicate both sexes are using social media in huge numbers, our findings show that women far outpace the men.

Feminisation and pauperisation together with an increased concentration of AIDS cases in urban environments are the main characteristics of the HIV and AIDS epidemics in Argentina. Increased infection of HIV among poor young child-bearing women generates an increase in the demand for public health care and services. Although the country has had a legal framework guaranteeing reproductive health services and HIV/AIDS programmes has denied women living with HIV (WLWH) access to adequate health care, particularly for their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs. Additionally, WLWH's access to information on reproductive health, family planning services, control of cervival cancer, STIs and other gynaecological problems is limited.

The purpose of the study was to identify and describe perceptions of HIV positive Swazi women on childbearing. Specifically the study assessed their level of knowledge on mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) and its prevention, established the extent of contribution they have on reproductive decision-making, and ascertained their opinions of reproductive health services.