Application of Activity Theory in Understanding Online Communities of Practice: A Case of Feminism

Authors

  • Shahla Ghobadi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/joci.v9i1.3181

Keywords:

online Communitiy of Practice, Women, Women empowerment, feminism, activity theory, social movements

Abstract

The extant literature has frequently acknowledged the crucial potential of Information and Communication Technologies for women empowerment. This study targets feminism as an important indicator of women empowerment. It then investigates the challenges of feminism in eastern countries from a novel angle that questions: “why those eastern women who already have feminist attitudes fail to demonstrate feminist behaviours?” The paper draws upon activity theory and proposed the moderating impact of online women-related communities of practice in transforming feminist-related attitudes into feminist-related behaviours of eastern women. The analysis of quantitative data collected from an online community of practice confirms the postulated proposition.  The results present regarding the use of online women-related in the examined population as well as how Information Technology can be applied for facilitation of women empowerment in eastern societies.

Author Biography

Shahla Ghobadi

Shahla Ghobadi (BE, MSc, PhD) received her PhD from the the School of Information Systems, Technology, and Management at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Prior to entering academia she worked as an industrial engineer in the sales and logistic division of a large automobile manufacturing company. Her academic backgrounds include industrial engineering and information systems; She has published in the areas of knowledge management, system dynamics, and software development teams. E-mail: s.ghobadi@unsw.edu.au or shahlaghobadi@gmail.com

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2013-03-28

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2013)

Section

Research Articles