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Gender Differences in Computer Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier
... Different gender claims can be affected by the genres and contexts available in hyperspace, as gender presentation interacts variously with the virtual worlds online (Herring, 2000). It is thought to be relatively common that members of the non-dominant gender will adapt their style to that of the dominant gender (Herring, 1994). However, certain clues can reveal users' true gender, such as accounts' pictures and names, reference to oneself using gender markers, as evident when collecting the data. ...
... Returning to netiquette, one of the rules of netiquette is to refrain from insulting or offending others. Interestingly, Herring (1994) found that women take into consideration "the face needs of the addressee", whereas men adopt a face threatening style when engaging in cyberspace communication. ...
... This use of politeness strategies may explain why males refrain from using animal metaphors for name calling on Twitter when addressing females, especially those metaphors that connote sexual impurity. This also corresponds with Herring (1994)'s finding that women take the addresser's face needs into consideration, which is generally not true for male to male communication online. Moreover, women refrained from using insulting words to attain respect, using a 'lady like' style. ...
This study investigates how tweeters of different genders use animal metaphors in reference to others, and what this indicates about gender related attitudes. The focal framework utilized Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Searches for tweets included targeting soccer club names and animal names conducting a basic Twitter search at: https://Twitter. com/search-home. The 938 tweets that resulted were categorized into four groups according to the gender of the addresser and addressee, ie f/f, f/m, m/f, m/m1. The tweets that resulted revealed patterns that were associated with the gender addresser/addressee categories. Females posted 90 dog, 35 donkey, 1 monkey, and 4 pig metaphors. Males posted 354 dog, 405 donkey, 23 monkey, and 17 pig metaphors. The pig and monkey metaphors were found to be the least frequently posted by either females or males. Tweeters did not use the animal metaphor pig in reference to females. It is probable that the metaphors monkey and pig were not posted as frequently as dog and donkey due to context, as Saudi Arabia is not the natural habitat of monkeys or pigs. Moreover, females were never name-called using the metaphors monkey and pig, as these terms suggest ugliness and impure sexuality, respectively. The etiquettes, and netiquettes, of communication within the Saudi speech community occlude references to such traits with regard to females. On their part, females posted very few tweets using the terms monkey and pig to address males, and only to express strong reproach when the males had broken netiquettes or engaged in wrongdoing.
... These cases subsequently led to legislation, underscoring the importance of investigating text-based gender identification techniques. Research on offline communication has shown that men and women communicate differently (Coates, 2015;Herring, 1993Herring, , 1994). Yet, Herring (2013) stated that gender style is the most resistant to technological reshaping. ...
... On the other hand, males value status (Miller & Durndell, 2004). Male communication is characterised by strong assertions, dominance and authoritative tones (Guiller & Durndell, 2007;Hayat et al., 2017;Herring, 1993) as well as profanities and insults (Herring, 1994;. In addition, males were shown to be more self-promoting in their discourse (Herring, 2003; and talk more explicitly about sex (Subrahmanyan et al., 2006). ...
... On the other hand, the three typically female comments were characterised by Interpersonal Orientation/Supportiveness (F1), Polite and Emotionally Expressive words (F4), Hedges (F2), and Attenuation/Experience Sharing (F8). The typical female commenters made a connection with the recipient of their message through their interpersonal orientation, suggestions and experience sharing (Guiller & Durndell, 2007;Herring, 1994), but the typical male commenters were prone to making forceful, explicit and unambiguous statements of their opinions (Postmes & Spears, 2002). In contrast, female commenters were more likely to consider the feelings and context of the recipients of their message when giving opinions to ensure that they feel accepted (Herring, 1993). ...
The study examined gendered language features based on perceptions of Malaysian millennials in Facebook communication. The data were collected from 60 millennials who were Facebook users living in Malaysia. In the study, the millennials were asked to read 14 comments by other Facebook users and asked to state whether they were written by female or male users and to justify their identification of gender. An analysis framework made based on past findings on gendered language features was used to code the 14 Facebook comments as female or male features. The analysis showed that the accuracy of gender identification was about 50%. Comments identified as written by males were those containing straightforward and short comments, harsh language, male discussion topics, and societal roles. Conversely, comments identified as written by females were those containing advice, expression of emotions, empathy, female discussion topics, and polite language. The findings suggest that some language features are losing a clear gender identification. The gender-neutral features emerge from female users who also use words with profanities and insults, and write in an autonomous or directive manner, and male users who engage in attenuation/experience sharing, and interpersonal orientation/supportiveness. The study indicates that despite the association of Facebook comment features with gender, gender identity lines are getting blurred among millennial Facebook users, making gender identification more difficult. Keywords: Gendered language features, Malaysian millennials, Facebook, Facebook communication, online gender identification.
... Engage in more communal activities/ 2 Express appreciation, thanking, and community-building activities that make other participants feel accepted and welcome. Guadagno et al. (2011), Guiller and Durndell (2006), Herring (1994), Morris (2013) F2 Hedges 6 Express doubt or soften speaker's utterance Amir et al. (2012), Basow (2008), Bonvillian (2000)*, Herring (1993), Walker (2008)* F3 Apologies ...
... Use "sorry" and other expressions to apologize Herring (2003), Holmes (1989), Walker (2008) Guiller and Durndell (2007), Herring (1994) Sources for the definitions: 1 Guadagno et al. (2011), 2 Herring (1993, 3 Herring (2000), 4 Postmes and Spears (2002), 5 Guiller and Durndell (2006), 6 Amir et al. (2012), 7 Basow and Rubenfeld (2003), 8 Herring (1994) *Descriptions of gendered language features based on empirical data involving face-to-face interactions ...
... Facebook comments written by male users are generally perceived as rude and low on experience sharing, while polite language and experience sharing are associated with females. Male users are perceived to be actively using profanities and insults (Herring 1994;Thomson & Murachver 2001) as they are deemed to be more direct in their expression. In addition, the study identified seven gendered language features which are weak identifiers of gender because of low frequency of use, namely, Information Orientation (M1), Self-Promotion (M2), Sexual Reference (M3), Opposed orientation (M7), Hedges (F2), Apologies (F3), and Tag Questions (F6). ...
This study examines gendered language use in Facebook comments by Malaysian millennial users. Textual analysis was conducted on 260 Facebook comments collected from 11 Facebook social pages. Sixty participants' reasons for identifying the gender of the writers of 14 Facebook comments were also analyzed. The results showed that half of the participants could correctly guess the writers' gender. The Facebook comments showed more frequent use of male than female language features. The male millennial users were inclined towards using Sexual
... WO groups used more "I" statements than the MO groups . Herring (1994) reported men's styles in groups included: "put-downs, strong often contentious assertions, lengthy and/or frequent postings, self-promotion, and sarcasm" (pp. 3-4). ...
... 3-4). On the other hand, Herring (1994) observed that WO style is composed of two aspects: "supportiveness and attenuation" (pp. 3-4). ...
... Moreover, females in both same and mixed-gender groups obtained higher means than males in asking questions, correcting moves, giving explanations, indicating empathy and sympathy, agreeing with or supporting others, and complimenting their partners, which emphasizes females' cooperativeness. This observation might link with the observation that females' style tends to be cooperative and meek and tends to express socioemotional ideas while males' style is argumentative, competitive, authoritative, and non-cooperative (see Herring 1994;Sierpe 2000;Guiller and Durndell 2007;Cameron 2009aCameron , 2009bHayat et al. 2017;Pakzadian and Tootkaboni 2018). Thus, such gender differences between males and females may be accounted for in prior gender studies (e.g., Lakoff 1973;Holmes 1992;2013;Al-Shlool 2016) as females produced discourse functions that are less direct and challenging than those produced by males, and they also used more polite words than males. ...
This study investigates the role of gender on EFL Learners' output of discourse functions obtained from computer-mediated communications (CMC) via Skype. The study seeks to answer the question: Are there any statistically significant differences among the total means of discourse functions generated by gender groups (same-gender (male-male (MM), and female-female (FF)) and mixed-gender (female-male (FM), and male-female (MF)))? Sixty-four undergraduates (32 females and 32 males) participated in the study. They were assigned into two gender main groups: same-gender (MM: 16 males who chatted in pair groups with each other; FF: 16 females who chatted in pairs with each other) and mixed-gender groups (32 participants (16 females chatting with 16 males in pairs, MF (males' output) and FM (females' output)). Participants were asked to chat in pairs for an hour. Results revealed that FF group produced significantly more discourse functions than all the other gender groups, by having the highest total mean.
... Das Internet als eine textbasierte Technologie hat vor allem die feministische Linguistik zu empirischen Studien veranlasst. So etwa hat Susan Herring (1994) anhand der Kommunikation in Mailinglisten geschlechterstereotype Kommunikationsstile (Gesprächs-und Beziehungsarbeit versus Dominanz) und Kommunikationsethiken (Empathie und Offenheit versus Zensur-und Redefreiheit) herausgearbeitet. Da ihre Studien auch zeigten, dass es zu einer Anpassung der kommunikativen Stile kommen konnte, empfahl sie Frauen, sich in women-only-Mailinglisten und -Newsgroups über durchsetzungsfähige Kommunikationsstrategien auszutauschen und sich insbesondere an der Modifikation der Netzregeln (netiquette) aktiv zu beteiligen. ...
This article analyses the gendered differences in digital political communication of Ukrainian politicians and international figures on Twitter/X during Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Narratives are captured using a structural topic model of 130,000 tweets by 74 Ukrainian politicians and the 223 international figures they targeted most to understand how men and women use different narratives during war. Men’s communications concentrated on military and diplomatic narratives while those of women focused on civilian trauma and Russian war crimes but contained no calls for compromise, disproving Western theories that women are more pacifist than men. A gender affinity effect was evident between men Ukrainian politicians and international figures, possibly due to men’s higher positions of power. These findings contribute knowledge to how gender impacts narrative use during armed conflict.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Gender-based communication differences are described in educational online communities, but have not been rigorously evaluated in medical online communities. Understanding gender differences in communication may provide insight into gender disparities in the medical profession. Our objective was to describe gender differences in post frequency, content, and language styles on the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Hospital Medicine (SOHM) listserv.
METHODS
Posts were obtained from publicly available SOHM listserv archives. The first month of every quarter of 2019 and 2020 were reviewed. Two reviewers assigned a post topic (clinical, research, etc) and format (question vs statement) to all deidentified original posts (K = 1.0 topic, 0.89 format). Six trained reviewers assigned language styles (intraclass coefficient = 0.73, indicating good agreement).
RESULTS
We analyzed 1592 posts: 287 original posts and 1305 responses. Frequency: Women authored 50% of posts. The 9 most frequent posters (7 men, 2 women) accounted for 19.5% of posts. Content: Men’s posts had more words than women’s (132.51 vs 112.3, P ≤ .01). Men were more likely to post about health policy and research (P < .001). Men were more likely to post statements compared with women (39% vs 21%, P < .001). Style: Men’s posts were more likely to be coded adversarial (12.3% vs 5.5%, P < .001) authoritative (12.2% vs 6.5%, P < .001) or self-amplifying (6.5% vs 3.6%, P < .001).
CONCLUSIONS
Women contribute disproportionately fewer posts to the American Academy of Pediatrics SOHM listserv compared with their percentage in the subspecialty. We noted significant gender differences in language style and content, which may impact career development and online community inclusion.
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The chapter sets out the role for international human rights law on the Internet. It addresses two questions: is there a human right to access the Internet and how do human rights apply online? The first question affects the degree of protection required. If access to the Internet is considered a human right per se or an aspect of existing rights, obligations arise in ensuring substantive equality in terms of content and communication. It also indicates the value of the Internet which, for example, has an impact on balancing exercises in conflicts of rights. Meanwhile, a contextual approach to the application of international human rights law standards takes into consideration how rights are applied in the online context. Regulation relevant to preventing gender-based offences—the prohibition on gender-based violence and obligations to eliminate gender-stereotyping—is presented. Meanwhile, the context of the Internet as a gendered sphere is examined, focusing on Internet architecture and social norms. The premise is that, although the causes of online offences against women are similar to gender-based violations in general, the characteristics of the Internet influence the pervasiveness, the effect and the regulation of harmful conduct. This, in turn, must affect the application of human rights online, including the scope of rights, the resolving of conflicts of rights and the content of state obligations.
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