Contrary to what the readings suggest, I’ll keep my post short for today. I think Wolfe and Rickly are interesting in relation to our discussion last week about male vs. female membership in online spaces as well as perceptions of how many men and women participate, and consequently how different spaces are gendered. I immediately wonder how women would perceive participation in a predominantly female space online vs. off, as compared with the results of the two studies here. It might also be interesting to do a quick, summary version of these studies with the logs of our in-class MOOC simulation via Facebook chat. Of course, both articles mention that past studies have relied too much on grad students and professors as participants, rather than undergraduate students (although I’m not convinced that the results would be entirely different given my personal experiences). One question also lingers with me: how do (can?) such studies of participation account for differences in technological literacy and access based on gender/sex, and does/would (how?) that influence the results?