{"title":"Can social media combat gender inequalities in academia? Measuring the prevalence of the Matilda effect in communication","authors":"Yunya Song, Xiaohui Wang, Guanrong Li","doi":"10.1093/jcmc/zmad050","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study sought to investigate whether scholarly impact and academic influence differ between men and women in the field of communication and the extent to which the gender gap has persisted on social media platforms, an arena increasingly used for research dissemination. Data were collected from 10,736 articles, published in prominent communication journals between 2012 and 2022, using a combination of three sources: OpenAlex, Altmetric, and Twitter. The gender of 6,827 first authors was identified using ChatGPT, with an accuracy of 0.94. The findings confirmed the presence of the Matilda effect, indicating a bias toward male scholars in terms of research performance, academic mobility, and online popularity. Furthermore, the study revealed uneven gains between male and female scholars in their use of social media for research dissemination. These results have implications for how science communities can effectively promote research on social media.","PeriodicalId":48319,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad050","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study sought to investigate whether scholarly impact and academic influence differ between men and women in the field of communication and the extent to which the gender gap has persisted on social media platforms, an arena increasingly used for research dissemination. Data were collected from 10,736 articles, published in prominent communication journals between 2012 and 2022, using a combination of three sources: OpenAlex, Altmetric, and Twitter. The gender of 6,827 first authors was identified using ChatGPT, with an accuracy of 0.94. The findings confirmed the presence of the Matilda effect, indicating a bias toward male scholars in terms of research performance, academic mobility, and online popularity. Furthermore, the study revealed uneven gains between male and female scholars in their use of social media for research dissemination. These results have implications for how science communities can effectively promote research on social media.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) has been a longstanding contributor to the field of computer-mediated communication research. Since its inception in 1995, it has been a pioneer in web-based, peer-reviewed scholarly publications. JCMC encourages interdisciplinary research, welcoming contributions from various disciplines, such as communication, business, education, political science, sociology, psychology, media studies, and information science. The journal's commitment to open access and high-quality standards has solidified its status as a reputable source for scholars exploring the dynamics of communication in the digital age.