Can social media combat gender inequalities in academia? Measuring the prevalence of the Matilda effect in communication

Celine SONG, Xiaohui Wang*, Guanrong LI

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

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.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberzmad050
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of Computer-Mediated Communication
Volume29
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2024

User-Defined Keywords

  • Matilda effect
  • Twitter
  • communication
  • gender inequality
  • social media

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