Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention - Saturday

Blogging While Female

CHICAGO--This morning, Garance Franke-Ruta, who blogs at TAPPED and on her eponymous blog, The Garance, conducted a panel called "Blogging While Female," which featured Jessica Valenti of Feministing, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Gina Cooper of The Daily Kos. Each of the women addressed the experience they've had with online "trolls" and stalkers, usually men who use the comments sections of blogs to attack women writers, usually in sexualized ways.

Following an appearance she made on the Web-based TV program, Blogging Heads, Franke-Ruta received, she said, some 57 comments on her blog concerning whether or not she should have worn a barrette in her hair.

On a far more ominous note...

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Blogging the Yearly Kos Convention - Friday

Feminist Bloggers Poised to Combine Resources and Strength

CHICAGO--Here at the Yearly Kos conference, progressives of many stripes who normally convene in the blogosphere have gathered together in the physical space of the sprawling McCormick Place convention center to learn of the latest trends and create strategies for working together.

Yesterday, a gathering of feminist bloggers, in a discussion moderated by Tracy Van Slyke of Media Consortium and Jessica Clark of American University, took on the matter of how organizations that advocate for women in media are often unaware of each others' projects and wind up duplicating each others' efforts. Coming on the heels of last week's BlogHer conference, what I'm seeing is an ever-widening circle of women bloggers, reporters and media-reform advocates who gave begun to connect and inter-connect their efforts. When this happens, the ability to coordinate with each other as we strive together to crack the commentary continuum could truly leverage the impact of women in media, both mainstream and not.