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

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

gender inequality, Matilda effect, communication, social media, Twitter.

This study sought to investigate whether scholarly impact and academic influence differ between men and women in the field of communica-
tion 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 find-
ings 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.

Yunya Song 1,†

, Xiaohui Wang 2,†,�, Guanrong Li1,3

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad050

Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.

30 November 2023

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