Curated list of research and data on gender and social network analysis
2. Research questions for social network analysis and gender
When considering research questions for social network analysis and gender, the research discipline and problem context matters.
For social media research questions can be:
- How do gender dynamics influence the formation of communities and interaction patterns on platforms like X, Reddit or Instagram? This question could be examined by analyzing retweet patterns, follower networks, or mentions to investigate whether gender impacts content dissemination or engagement. Metrics like centrality and community detection can reveal whether men and women occupy different positions of influence within these networks.
- Are men and women equally central in social media discussions on politics? This involves measuring the centrality of users (e.g., degree or betweenness centrality) within networks focused on political discourse and exploring whether gender affects individuals’ prominence in these conversations.
Hence, to conduct social network analysis, researchers require relational data that map interactions, ties, and relationships between individuals or entities (Hanneman & Riddle, 2005). In the case of social media datasets, hashtags function as relational links between users, while tweets, retweets, and replies create ties that can be analyzed.
Considering citation practices, co-authorship, communication patterns etcetera, also circle around the realm of how gender dynamics influence the formation of communities and interaction patterns.
For social media research questions can be:
- How do gender dynamics influence the formation of communities and interaction patterns on platforms like X, Reddit or Instagram? This question could be examined by analyzing retweet patterns, follower networks, or mentions to investigate whether gender impacts content dissemination or engagement. Metrics like centrality and community detection can reveal whether men and women occupy different positions of influence within these networks.
- Are men and women equally central in social media discussions on politics? This involves measuring the centrality of users (e.g., degree or betweenness centrality) within networks focused on political discourse and exploring whether gender affects individuals’ prominence in these conversations.
Hence, to conduct social network analysis, researchers require relational data that map interactions, ties, and relationships between individuals or entities (Hanneman & Riddle, 2005). In the case of social media datasets, hashtags function as relational links between users, while tweets, retweets, and replies create ties that can be analyzed.
Considering citation practices, co-authorship, communication patterns etcetera, also circle around the realm of how gender dynamics influence the formation of communities and interaction patterns.