What is Cyber-Politics

Based on the underlying assumption that gender is a social construct, this chapter explores the World Wide Web home pages of key political figures in the USA and Ukraine focusing specifically on what the content posted to these sites and their structure suggests about gender and cultural peculiarities in constructing political identity on the Web. The personal page is rendered as a virtual political office—a peculiar meeting point between the site owner and its potential audience, electorate, and citizenry providing an excellent working place to be constantly in touch with the electoral body from anyplace and in anytime. All data are analyzed according to four parameters: male, female, Ukrainian, and American. The main result highlights the intersection across culture, gender, and computer-mediated communication (CMC) influencing the virtual identity formation. The intersectional approach towards viewing gendered virtual identity is proposed. The data obtained lead to suggestions for the creation of sites that are more in line with the potential provided by the Net to facilitate political communication.