Engagement patterns with female and male scientists on Facebook

Keren Dalyot, Yael Rozenblum, Ayelet Baram-Tsabari

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Social networks are becoming powerful agents mediating between science and the public. Considering the public tendency to associate science with men makes investigating representations of female scientists in social media important. Here we set out to find whether the commenting patterns to text-based science communication are similar. To examine these, we collected and analyzed posts (165) and their comments (10,006) published between 2016 and 2018 on an Israeli popular science Facebook page. We examined post characteristics as well as the relevance and sentiment of comments. Several gendered differences in commenting patterns emerged. Posts published by female scientists received more irrelevant and fewer relevant comments. Female scientists received more hostile and positive comments. These findings are consistent with results of previous research, but also demonstrate a more nuanced understanding that when female scientists write using scientific jargon (usually an unwanted feature of popular science writing), they received less hostile comments and were given less advice.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)867-884
Number of pages18
JournalPublic Understanding of Science
Volume31
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - 27 May 2022

Keywords

  • Facebook
  • gender bias
  • gender gap
  • science attitudes and perceptions
  • science communication
  • social media
  • women in science

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Communication
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

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