IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v118y2021pe2102945118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender inequities in the online dissemination of scholars’ work

Author

Listed:
  • Orsolya Vásárhelyi

    (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom; Laboratory for Networks, Technology and Innovation, Centre for Advanced Studies, Corvinus University, Budapest 1093, Hungary)

  • Igor Zakhlebin

    (Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208)

  • Staša Milojević

    (Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408)

  • Emőke-Ágnes Horvát

    (Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; Department of Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; Northwestern University Institute on Complex Systems, Evanston, IL 60208)

Abstract

Unbiased science dissemination has the potential to alleviate some of the known gender disparities in academia by exposing female scholars’ work to other scientists and the public. And yet, we lack comprehensive understanding of the relationship between gender and science dissemination online. Our large-scale analyses, encompassing half a million scholars, revealed that female scholars’ work is mentioned less frequently than male scholars’ work in all research areas. When exploring the characteristics associated with online success, we found that the impact of prior work, social capital, and gendered tie formation in coauthorship networks are linked with online success for men, but not for women—even in the areas with the highest female representation. These results suggest that while men’s scientific impact and collaboration networks are associated with higher visibility online, there are no universally identifiable facets associated with success for women. Our comprehensive empirical evidence indicates that the gender gap in online science dissemination is coupled with a lack of understanding the characteristics that are linked with female scholars’ success, which might hinder efforts to close the gender gap in visibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Orsolya Vásárhelyi & Igor Zakhlebin & Staša Milojević & Emőke-Ágnes Horvát, 2021. "Gender inequities in the online dissemination of scholars’ work," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(39), pages 2102945118-, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:118:y:2021:p:e2102945118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/118/39/e2102945118.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. González-Betancor, Sara M. & Dorta-González, Pablo, 2023. "Does society show differential attention to researchers based on gender and field?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    2. Zhou, Sifan & Chai, Sen & Freeman, Richard B., 2024. "Gender homophily: In-group citation preferences and the gender disadvantage," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    3. Kwon, Eunrang & Yun, Jinhyuk & Kang, Jeong-han, 2023. "The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    4. Si, Kao & Li, Yiwei & Ma, Chao & Guo, Feng, 2023. "Affiliation bias in peer review and the gender gap," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(7).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:118:y:2021:p:e2102945118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.