A perennial criticism regarding the use of social media in social science research is the lack of demographic information associated with naturally occurring mediated data such as that produced by Twitter. However the fact that demographics information is not explicit does not mean that it is not implicitly present. Utilising the Cardiff Online Social Media ObServatory (COSMOS) this paper suggests various techniques for establishing or estimating demographic data from a sample of more than 113 million Twitter users collected during July 2012. We discuss in detail the methods that can be used for identifying gender and language and illustrate that the proportion of males and females using Twitter in the UK reflects the gender balance observed in the 2011 Census. We also expand on the three types of geographical information that can be derived from Tweets either directly or by proxy and how spatial information can be used to link social media with official curated data. Whilst we make no grand claims about the representative nature of Twitter users in relation to the wider UK population, the derivation of demographic data demonstrates the potential of new social media (NSM) for the social sciences. We consider this paper a clarion call and hope that other researchers test the methods we suggest and develop them further.

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Knowing the Tweeters: Deriving Sociologically Relevant Demographics from Twitter:

Gender differences between participation in face-to-face and web-based classroom discussions were examined, by comparing the men-women actual participation ratio to the men-women attendance (or login) ratio. It was found that men over-proportionally spoke at the face-to-face classroom whereas women over-proportionally posted messages in the web-based conference. Two alternative explanations are discussed. It is suggested that either women prefer written communication more than men do, or that women prefer written communication over spoken communication. Nonetheless, despite some advantages of virtual discussions, especially for women, the online environment is apparently not attractive enough for either gender.

Participation in class and in online discussions: Gender differences

Adapting the consumer behavior selectivity model to the Web environment, this paper's key contribution is the introduction of a self-concept orientation model of Web information seeking. This model, which addresses gender, effort, and information content factors, questions the commonly assumed equivalence of sex and gender by specifying the measurement of gender-related self-concept traits known as self- and other-orientation. Regression analyses identified associations between self-orientation, other-orientation, and self-reported search frequencies for content with identical subject domain (e.g., medical information, government information) and differing relevance (i.e., important to the individual personally versus important to someone close to him or her). Self- and other-orientation interacted such that when individuals were highly self-oriented, their frequency of search for both self- and other-relevant information depended on their level of other-orientation. Specifically, high-self/high-other individuals, with a comprehensive processing strategy, searched most often, whereas high-self/low-other respondents, with an effort minimization strategy, reported the lowest search frequencies. This interaction pattern was even more pronounced for other-relevant information seeking. We found no sex differences in search frequency for either self-relevant or other-relevant information.

Gender and Web information seeking: A self-concept orientation model

This research invokes two theoretical perspectives—the equalization hypothesis and the SIDE model—to examine the impact of individuals' sex on group members' use of anonymous, computer-mediated collaborative technologies. Data from 127 individuals in 22 enduring task groups indicate that the strategies employed differentially by men and women correspond with inferred motivations: men are more likely to seek ways to make computer-mediated interactions more like a face-to-face interaction with women, whereas women are more likely to employ strategies that maintain the reduced social cues of computer-mediated communication and afford them greater potential influence in mixed-sex interactions. The integration of theories previously regarded as oppositional, and the empirical support of hypotheses derived from these perspectives, suggest a richer, more complex view of technological support of group work at a time when collaborative technologies are increasingly important, given shifts toward more dispersed, gl...

Computer-Mediated Group Work: The Interaction of Sex and Anonymity

Students' linguistic behaviour in online discussion groups: Does gender matter?

A quasi-experimental study examines how pseudonymous identification in a computer-mediated communication (CMC) context might (1) reflect a motivation for gender-based status parity and (2) mitigate supposed gender-based communication differences associated with social interdependence. One hundred and fourteen undergraduate students were assigned to participate in one of two separate computer-based, bulletin-board-style discussion groups or "forums". In one forum, participants were identified by their real names while participants in the other were identified by self-chosen pseudonyms. Consistent with expectations, analyses of conference transcripts and pseudonym choices indicated that (1) women tended to mask their gender with their pseudonym choice while males did not, and (2) women in both forums generally tended to exhibit certain dimensions of social interdependence more frequently than men. These dimensions included references to others, references to self, and supporting statements. Contrary to expe...

Hayg Oshagan

Papers

Gender Identification, Interdependence, and Pseudonyms in CMC: Language Patterns in an Electronic Conference.