#Communication(Elite)SoWhite
#Communication(Elite)SoWhite
The citation disparities get worse at the top of the pyramid
(Research summary by Elaine Schnabel)
This week, Deen Freelon, Meredith Pruden, Kirsten Eddy, and Rachel Kuo published a study detailing the degree to which race, gender, and location affect who gets cited in the top journals in the communication field. “Inequities of race, place, and gender among the communication citation elite, 2000–2019,” published in Journal of Communication, identifies a group of 1,675 highly cited communication scholars. As people cited the most often in the top communication journals, these scholars are the discipline’s “power elite;” their work disproportionately shapes what theories and research questions are considered valuable significant to the discipline. Building on previous work documenting serious inequalities in the field, Freelon and his collaborators show that these disparities are even more pronounced among top citations.
These “Elite” are 91.5% white, 74.3 male, and 78.6% located in the United States. These percentages are even more skewed white and male than general citation statistics found in previous work. And it gets worse when you apply an intersectional lens: among the 23 elite communication scholars who are Hispanic or Latine, only five are women. Of the 14 Black scholars in this elite group, only one is a woman (and she is employed by a department outside of communication studies).
Every single citation can “reify or resist” these inequities. For scholars seeking to resist these trends, the authors offer a series of recommendations:
Review the reference lists for your recent publications, presentations, course syllabi, and teaching pedagogy. Take note of how many citations claim to represent “universal” or “generalizable” theory and ask whether they apply only to Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries and people.
Prioritize diversity in your reading lists. When searching for new scholarship, always begin with those written by scholars from underrepresented groups. Follow other work by these scholars, take note of whom they are citing, and read those publications too.
Seek out responses to and critiques of longstanding or foundational work in the field, particularly those approaching this work through the lens of equity or diversity, and include these perspectives in your work.
Diversify the locations you cite. What are the origins of the literature you most frequently cite? Are they mostly WEIRD? Consider the broader global applicability (or lack thereof) of your work. Cite examples of similar issues occurring in other countries beyond your geographic region, or reconsider how your work can be more globally applicable and engage with scholarship that supports that endeavor.
Draw from existing resources aimed at equitable citation practices, such as AEJMC’s Inclusive Citation (iCite) Project, Women Also Know Stuff, People of Color Also Know Stuff, #CiteASista, Rockefeller Inclusive Science Initiative, Community of Online Research Assignments (Project CORA), Communication Scholars for Transformation, and The University of British Columbia’s Decolonization and Anti-Racism guide.
If you are active on social media, diversify your academic following to be exposed to new arguments and research.
Structural steps to increase citational justice include adding citation diversity statements to journal “About” pages; for journals to include the race and gender proportions of cited authors (aided by software that automatically detects these quantities [e.g., Alcantara Castillo et al., 2020]); diversifying journal editorial boards, associate editor teams, and referee invitations; and providing journal authors the option of submitting and publicizing their own demographic information in their articles.
As Stewart Coles added in sharing the study, “The striking thing about this study is not that whites, men, & USians are overrepresented among the communication citation elites—we been knew that. Rather, it's the startling degree to which this overrepresentation exists and persists. May this move the conversation forward.”
Publications and appearances
“Previous waves of new communication technologies—from websites and chat rooms to social media apps and video sharing services—have been shielded from legal liability for content posted on their platforms, enabling these digital services to rise to prominence. But with products like ChatGPT, critics of that legal framework are likely to get what they have long wished for: a regulatory model that makes tech platforms responsible for online content.” Affiliate Matt Perault imagines what platform liability for large language models will look like.
“Can a company that runs an online service and makes attempts to prevent terrorists from using it be held civilly liable for providing knowing and substantial assistance to such groups if it did not take enough “meaningful” or “aggressive” action to remove the content?” Affiliate Daniel Johnson considers the implications of Taamneh v. Twitter for Slate.
“Despite many years of critical race scholars and feminist theorists working on privacy, most privacy scholarship still relies on legal, experimental, or computer science approaches, often lacking a deep analytic of global, state, corporate, or interpersonal power differentials.” Alice Marwick considers what privacy scholarship can learn from surveillance studies.
“When sex workers, and attributes imputed to them, are classified as “high risk,” whore stigma becomes encoded into automated decision-making tools, with poor or complicit human oversight.” Affiliate Rachel Kuo and collaborators document how financial technology companies discriminate against sex workers and recommend alternate law and policy frameworks.
Coming soon
February 28, 4pm: Francesca Tripodi kicks off the first of three Massachusetts-based events for The Propagandists’ Playbook at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard. Details and registration for Harvard community members.
March 2, 1pm: Francesca Tripodi talks about The Propagandists’ Playbook at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute. Details and registration.
March 3, 12pm: Francesca Tripodi talks about The Propagandists’ Playbook at UMass-Amherst. Zoom registration.
March 9 & 10: The virtual QAnon Research Conference. Event information and registration.
March 29: Tressie McMillan Cottom will give a talk at the UMass-Amherst College of Education. Details to follow.
March 31, 11am: The CITAP spring speaker series presents Hakeem Jefferson, “From Margin to Center”: Reorienting our Approach to the Study of Race and Inequality in the Social Sciences. Details and registration.
April 10, 9am: CITAP affiliate Bridget Barrett will give a public dissertation defense of her work on political merchandizing by campaigns and unofficial sellers. Details and registration (both in-person and virtual) to follow.
May 30, 2023: Release date for Alice Marwick’s The Private Is Political: Networked Privacy and Social Media.
