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Once characterized as a male-dominated space, the Internet
is now used by American women and men equally, according to a 2005 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project report. The gender divide presents itself more clearly in how men and women spend their time online. If
you download music files, participate in online auctions, or check sports scores and information, for example,
chances are you are male. If you get health information, spiritual and religious information, or use support-group
Web sites, you are more likely to be female.
While these statistics seem to adhere to traditional gender stereotypes, the statistics for online news reading
are more surprising. "While the gender ratio of people who read print newspapers is about 1-to-1," writes Laila
Weir, for Wired News,
60 percent to 70 percent of the people who read the websites of the same newspapers are male." Newspaper editors
are puzzled by the divide. Doug Feaveer, executive editor of washingtonpost.com
and president of the Online News
Association, "I would like our audience to look like America, Any of us who are serious about serving our communities
have to take (this) seriously and have to reach out."
What signs of gender bias in content and design do you see on the Web? On online news sites? Choose a news or
information site. Write an essay in which you discuss the extent to which the content and design of that web site
are male- or female-oriented.
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