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tess@etresoft.com
Dr. Pierce is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Luther College in Decorah Iowa where she teaches Communication and Women’s Studies. Tess received her undergraduate degree in Speech Communication from Colorado State University and her Master’s degree in Human Communication from the University of Denver. Her PhD is in Women’s Studies from Clark University.
Her research focuses on the way we use the Internet to advocate for social change. As a scholar studying global rhetorical strategies, her specific research encompasses feminist discourse, the Internet, and transnational cultural processes. As a communication and cultural scholar, Pierce focuses on the ways we integrate communication in our everyday lives and, how these in turn, globalize our communication strategies. She also has interests in communication and the environment. The primary focus of her dissertation research was on the gendered discourse and personal narratives of cyberactivist women, or cyberconduits. She examined women’s weblogs from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan to understand the role the Internet played in these women’s everyday lives. Weblogs mirror the Internet’s culture of self-disclosure and community, are designed for audiences, and provide a space for established voices to be heard while creating spaces for new voices. These new voices, or cyberconduits, are cyberfeminists who advocate for social justice on a local level, and act as knowledge conduits by using digital media and technology such as blogging to connect with activists on a global scale.
Abstract of research project
This project expands Internet research and calls for scholarship on gender and the Internet to include the political web spheres created by online social movements. Specifically, this project compares the gendered rhetorical strategies in the official web sites of the European Green Party and The Green Party of the United States. Feminist rhetorical analysis (Foss & Foss, 1991) and metaphor analysis (Lakoff & Johnson, 1981) form the basis of an examination of these groups’ English language websites in order to understand how the activists perform and subvert cultural gender roles and rules and to understand the transformative and persuasive processes they employ.
Summary of lecture
Online Gender and Power: A Rhetorical Comparative Analysis of the Visual and Discursive Metaphors on the Green Party USA and EuroGreen Websites
The issues that confront us online mirror those that confront us offline. Issues such as public vs. private space, identity, power and domination all influence the ways in which we accept or reject political messages. My research project questioned whether or not progressive political movements, such as the Green Party of Europe and the United States, reinforced or resisted the dominant gender paradigms. My initial findings indicate that institutionalized gender stereotypes are just being repackaged in the slick graphics of hypertext and this may both alienate and attract potential supporters.
Publications
Blogging for life. The role of the cyberconduit in everyday narratives, cyberfeminism, and global social change. In Archibald, J., Emms, J., Grundy, F., Payne, J., & Turner, E. (Eds.). The gender politics of ICT. (pp. 163-178). Middlesex, UK: Middlesex University Press. (2005).
Ecofeminism. In Martinez-Aleman, A. M. & Renn, K. A. (Eds.). Women in higher education: An encyclopedia. (pp.163-166). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. (2002).
Selected Conference Papers
“The role of the cyberconduit in connecting the fragmented (cyber)self: Rhetorical performance at the virtual/real-world divide.” National Communication Association Convention, San Antonio, TX, November 2006. Panelist.
“Interactive lives: the roles of weblogs and cyberfeminism in the health of feminist and communication research.” National Communication Association Convention, Boston, MA, November 2005. Competitive Paper.
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