Exploring the YouTube science communication gender gap: A sentiment analysis

Inoka Amarasekara; Will J. Grant

doi:10.1177/0963662518786654

Exploring the YouTube science communication gender gap: A sentiment analysis

Inoka Amarasekara
, Will J. Grant^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

131 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

YouTube has become the second most popular web search engine (see Alexa.com) and the primary website for individuals and organisations to freely distribute video content. Popularity statistics indicate that Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics–related content is of significant interest to YouTube audiences, yet analysis of the 391 most popular science, engineering and mathematics–themed channels reveals a conspicuous absence of female communicators, with the hosts of just 32 of these channels presenting as female. To help understand potential causes of this gap, analysis was conducted on popularity indicators and audience sentiments of 450 videos from 90 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics–related channels. Female hosted channels were found to accumulate more comments per view, and significantly higher proportions of appearance, hostile, critical/negative and sexist/sexual commentary.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	68-84
Number of pages	17
Journal	Public Understanding of Science
Volume	28
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662518786654
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2019

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Exploring the YouTube science communication gender gap: A sentiment analysis

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