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Digitizing Third World Bodies: Communicating Race, Identity, and Gender through Online Microfinance/A Visual Analysis

Yartey, Franklin Nii Amankwah
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1329782791

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, Communication Studies.
Microlending through online venues has introduced a new model of lending through web 2.0 communication technologies. I examined micro lending through online venues – such as kiva.org, MicroPlace.com, and ACCION.org. The theoretical framework is based in Critical Cyberculture Studies and Critical Development Communication using visual analysis (Brummet, 2010; 2011; Mirzoeff, 2009; Nakamura, 2008; Olsen, 2007; Sosale, 2007) as my method, which is supplemented with interviews. I draw in part from visual rhetoric to inform my critique of the interplay of visual images, symbols, texts, and other elements in the microfinance web sites. On the home pages of Kiva.org, ACCION.org and MicroPlace.com, I analyzed the layout, including visuals and texts on their respective homepages. I examined the communication processes in these web 2.0 portals, because while some sites may indeed empower the poor, other sites may be disempowering to the poor. Kiva, ACCION, and MicroPlace thus reproduce issues of race, identity, and representation online, becoming discursive and rhetorical spaces where race and identity are produced and reproduced in various forms (Nakamura, 2002). Understanding the representations of third-world identities/bodies on micro lending sites is important. Also, global development initiatives such as kiva.org, MicroPlace.com, and ACCION.org have wide reaching ramifications; thus, the notion of empowerment of the poor, as reflected on the web portals of kiva.org, MicroPlace.com, and ACCION.org, bears scrutiny.
Radhika Gajjala, PhD (Committee Chair)
Lynda Dixon, PhD (Committee Member)
Ellen Gorsevski, PhD (Committee Member)
Shannon Orr, PhD (Other)
248 p.
African Studies; Banking; Black Studies; Business Education; Communication; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Ethnic Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; Health; Labor Economics; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Sub Saharan Africa Studies
Kiva; Accion; MicroPlace; Online microfinance; Web 2.0 communication technologies; Critical Cyberculture Studies; Race; Representation online; Empowerment; Identity; Neoliberal; Global North; Critical Development Communication; Visual analysis

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yartey, F. N. A. (2012). Digitizing Third World Bodies: Communicating Race, Identity, and Gender through Online Microfinance/A Visual Analysis [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1329782791

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yartey, Franklin. Digitizing Third World Bodies: Communicating Race, Identity, and Gender through Online Microfinance/A Visual Analysis. 2012. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1329782791.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yartey, Franklin. "Digitizing Third World Bodies: Communicating Race, Identity, and Gender through Online Microfinance/A Visual Analysis." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1329782791

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1329782791
1,693
© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.