An Exploration of Creative Minds for Future Media – ‘Gender in New Media’

An Exploration of Creative Minds for Future Media – ‘Gender in New Media’

The internet’s ability to reach a diverse range of users has impacted the way we consume technology today. The development of information and technology brings with it the emergence of new challenges to its users and has influenced the way we perceive the world. It is unsurprising that the digital space creates the risk of sexual harassment, commonly referred to as ‘Online Gender-Based Violence’ and therefore, the third training session for the University of Pereadeniya focused on these challenges one might face with regard to their gender or gender identity in the digital sphere.

With the introduction to ‘Gender in New Media’; the third training session commenced on September 18th 2021 for the students of University of Peradeniya. 67 Students: 13 male and 54 female participated in the session.

The training was conducted by Dr. M.C. Rasmin with team ‘Hithawathi’ and moderated by Mohamed Azad – Program director of SDJF.

The session commenced with an interactive pre-test activity with the objective of understanding the students’ perception of gender in new media. The results revealed that the majority of the students defined cyberbullying as constant harassment that they experience online, which is accurate but identified the term ‘bystander’ as a person who does the right thing when he or she witnesses an event of harassment, which is contrary to the meaning of the actual term.

Most of the participants defined gender identity and sexual identity as two different concepts. Students actively participated in the pre-test activity and thus provided an effective and interactive environment for Dr. M.C. Rasmin to conduct the session.

During his speech, he described how the history of our patriarchal society has contributed to current gender stereotypes and serves as a limitation towards human perception on gender. He went on to add that, our literature, economy and political environment have furthermore been influenced by these limitations and that humans have a right to represent their gender identity without being conformed or challenged by patriarchal ideologies; and that it is important to understand that the digital space does not remain separate from particular ideologies even in this day and age. 

The second part of the session was conducted by Team ‘Hithawathi’. “Hithawathi-Your Confidante” project has been helping people who have been violated in cyberspace and have been victims and casualties of technology/internet related activities, since 2014. Sachini, program manager of ‘Hithawathi’ along with her anonymous colleague who works closely with and counsels the youth, read out excerpts of case studies that the project has been involved in, leading to a very informative session on real-life experiences.

They add that “Online harassment encompasses a wide range of behaviours that use digital content (images, videos, posts, messages) on a variety of different platforms (private or public). It can make a person feel threatened, exploited, coerced, humiliated, upset, sexualized or discriminated against. The experience an impact of online sexual harassment is unique to the individual and can be felt both in the short-term but also can have long-term impacts on mental health and wellbeing”

They emphasized the importance of privacy protection especially amongst the youth and recommended against posting identifiable information and to think conscientiously when deciding to upload photos and personal details into digital platforms.

At the end of the program, winners of the ‘Freedom of Expression Session Assignment’ were announced. Kalindu Adhikari won the first place, while Harshika Kumarasinghe was the second winner and Kavindi Sandunika Herath won the third place.

The next training session will be conducted on 25th September 20201.

The activity is implemented as a part of Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and freedom of Expression (InSPIRE) project implemented by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) in partnership with Helvetas Intercooperation and funded by the European Union.

For more info: https://www.ldjf.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LDJF.org