How do you translate the power of individual experience into a shared recommendation for action?
Tiffany Coulson's MLIS Capstone project, “Voices on the World Stage: Processing the power of individual experience in recommendations for action,” addressed this problem for World Pulse, a global women’s advocacy network. They wanted to find a way to share the information coming from their grassroots women leaders to help their advocacy partners tell compelling stories about women’s issues.
Coulson worked with “Women weave the web,” a digital action campaign sponsored by World Pulse, to analyze 182 journal entries from women in 41 countries over a 10 week period to understand issues related to worldwide internet access, library development, internet affordability, internet rights, and technology related violence against women.
Through a process which focused on the journal entries, women’s advocacy groups are shown real solutions to global problems while maintaining the integrity of individual experiences. Included in the recommendation matrix are campaign advocacy packages, graphic summaries of recommendations, specific examples, representative quotes and links to original entries.
Coulson’s recommendations matrix will be shared at WSIS (World Summit on Information Society) Forum in Geneva in the workshop “Power of Digital Media - Bringing Women a Global Voice.” She has also been invited to be a panelist at the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, this fall.