Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It pp 199–213Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Online Participation Divide

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

Women, members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and those of lower socioeconomic status tend to contribute to online conversations at lower levels. Such unequal participation then results in the underrepresentation of certain perspectives on the many user-generated content platforms that hundreds of millions of people peruse on a daily basis. Also, as more and more studies rely on automatically generated log data, or so-called “big data,” from such sites to study social behavior, the perspectives of people not participating on sites are also less likely to show up in an increasing number of scientific studies that may then form the basis of policy interventions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Antin, Judd, Raymond Yee, Coye Cheshire, and Oded Nov. 2011. Gender differences in Wikipedia editing. In Proceedings of the 7th international symposium on Wikis and open collaboration. Mountain View.

    Google Scholar 

  • Antunovic, Dunja, and Marie Hardin. 2013. Women bloggers: Identity and the conceptualization of sports. New Media and Society 15(8): 1374–1392. doi:10.1177/1461444812472323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Auerbach, David. 2014. Encyclopedia Frown. Slate, December 11. Available at http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/12/wikipedia_editing_disputes_the_crowdsourced_encyclopedia_has_become_a_rancorous.html.

  • Barcelos, Christie. 2012. Social privilege and mom blogging. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/02/23/social-privilege-and-mom-blogging/.

  • Barron, Brigid, Sarah E. Walter, Caitlin Kennedy Martin, and Colin Schatz. 2010. Predictors of creative computing participation and profiles of experience in two Silicon Valley middle schools. Computers and Education 54(1): 178–189. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.07.017.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benkler, Yochai, and Aaron Shaw. 2012. A tale of two blogospheres: Discursive practices on left and right. American Behavioral Scientist 56(4): 459–487.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blank, Grant. 2013. Who creates content? Stratification and content creation on the Internet. Information, Communication and Society 16(4): 590–612. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2013.777758.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonfadelli, Heinz. 2002. The internet and knowledge gaps. A theoretical and empirical investigation. European Journal of Communication 17(1): 65–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bosman, Julie. 2005. Stuck at the edges of the ad game. The New York Times, November 22. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807E4D81F3EF931A15752C1A9639C8B63&pagewanted=all.

  • boyd, danah. 2011. White flight in networked publics? How race and class shaped American teen engagement with MySpace and Facebook. In Race after the internet, ed. P. Chow-White and L. Nakamura, 203–222. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • boyd, danah., and Eszter Hargittai. 2010. Facebook privacy settings. Who cares? First Monday 15(8).

    Google Scholar 

  • Brake, David R. 2014. Are we all online content creators now? Web 2.0 and digital divides. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19(3): 591–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collier, Benjamin, and Julia Bear. 2012. Conflict, criticism, or confidence: An empirical examination of the gender gap in Wikipedia contributions. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Seattle.

    Google Scholar 

  • Compaine, Benjamin M. 2001. Declare the war won. In The digital divide: Facing a crisis or creating a myth? ed. Benjamin M. Compaine, 315–335. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • comScore. 2015. comScore ranks the top 50 U.S. Digital media properties for September 2015. Available at https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-Ranks-the-Top-50-US-Digital-Media-Properties-for-August-2015.

  • Correa, Teresa. 2010. The participation divide among ‘online experts’: Experience, skills and psychological factors as predictors of college students’ web content creation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 16(1): 71–92. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2010.01532.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiMaggio, Paul, and Eszter Hargittai. 2001. From the ‘digital divide’ to ‘digital inequality’: Studying internet use as penetration increases. Princeton: Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duggan, Maeve, Nicole B. Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Amanda Lenhart, and Mary Madden. 2015. Social media update 2014. Pew Research Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fallows, Deborah. 2005. How women and men use the Internet. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Available at http://www.pewinternet.org/2005/12/28/how-women-and-men-use-the-internet/.

  • Farrell, Henry, and Daniel W. Drezner. 2008. The power and politics of blogs. Public Choice 134: 15–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Filipacchi, Amanda. 2013. Wikipedia’s sexism toward female novelists. The New York Times, April 28. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/opinion/sunday/wikipedias-sexism-toward-female-novelists.html?_r=1.

  • Gleick, James. 2013. Wikipedia’s women problem. The New York Review of Books, April 29.http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2013/04/29/wikipedia-women-problem/.

  • Gui, Marco, and Gianluca Argentin. 2011. Digital skills of internet natives: Different forms of digital literacy in a random sample of northern Italian high school students. New Media and Society 13(6): 963–980. doi:10.1177/1461444810389751.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hampton, Keith N., Lauren Sessions Goulet, Cameron Marlow, and Lee Rainie. 2012. Why most Facebook users get more than they give. Pew Internet & American Life Project.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2000. Open portals or closed gates? Channeling content on the World Wide Web. Poetics 27: 233–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2002. Second-level digital divide: Differences in people’s online skills. First Monday 7(4).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2007a. A framework for studying differences in people’s digital media uses. In Cyberworld Unlimited? ed. Nadia Kutscher and Hans-Use Otto, 121–137. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2007b. Whose space? Differences among users and non-users of social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1): 276–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2010. Digital na(t)ives? Variation in internet skills and uses among members of the ‘net generation’. Sociological Inquiry 80(1): 92–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2011. Open doors, closed spaces? Differentiated adoption of social network sites by user background. In Race after the internet, ed. Peter Chow-White and Lisa Nakamura, 223–245. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter. 2015. Is bigger always better? Potential biases of big data derived from social network sites. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 659: 63–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and Amanda Hinnant. 2008. Digital inequality: Differences in young adults’ use of the internet. Communication Research 35(5): 602–621.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and Yu-li Patrick Hsieh. 2010. Predictors and consequences of differentiated social network site uses. Information, Communication and Society 13(4): 515–536.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and Eden Litt. 2011. The tweet smell of celebrity success: Explaining variation in Twitter adoption among a diverse group of young adults. New Media and Society. doi:10.1177/1461444811405805.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and E. Litt. 2013. New strategies for employment? Internet skills and online privacy practices during people’s job search. IEEE Security and Privacy 11(3): 38–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and Steven Shafer. 2006. Differences in actual and perceived online skills: The role of gender. Social Science Quarterly 87(2): 432–448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and Aaron Shaw. 2015. Mind the skills gap: The role of Internet know-how and gender in differentiated contributions to Wikipedia. Information, Communication and Society 18(4): 424–442. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2014.957711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, and Gina Walejko. 2008. The participation divide: Content creation and sharing in the digital age. Information, Communication and Society 11(2): 239–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hargittai, Eszter, Jason Gallo, and Matthew Yale Kane. 2008. Cross-ideological discussions among conservative and liberal bloggers. Public Choice 134: 67–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harp, Dustin, and Mark Tremayne. 2006. The gendered blogosphere: Examining inequality using network and feminist theory. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 83(2): 247–264. doi:10.1177/107769900608300202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassani, Sara Nephew. 2006. Locating digital divides at home, work, and everywhere else. Poetics 34: 250–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hecht, Brent, and Monica Stephens. 2014. A tale of cities: Urban biases in volunteered geographic information. Proceedings of ICWSM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hern, Alex. 2015. Wikipedia votes to ban some editors from gender-related articles. The Guardian, January 23. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/23/wikipedia-bans-editors-from-gender-related-articles-amid-gamergate-controversy.

  • Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2013. The Wikipedia gender gap revisited: Characterizing survey response bias with propensity score estimation. PLoS ONE 8(6): e65782.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, Donna L., and Thomas P. Novak. 1998. Bridging the racial divide on the internet. Science 280: 390–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmann, Christian P., Christoph Lutz, and Miriam Meckel. 2015. Content creation on the internet: A social cognitive perspective on the participation divide. Information, Communication and Society 18(6): 696–716.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, Philip N., Rainie Lee, and Steve Jones. 2001. Days and nights on the internet: The impact of a diffusing technology. American Behavioral Scientist 45(3): 383–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, Henry, Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robison. 2009. Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, Henry, Mizuko Ito, and danah boyd. 2015. Participatory culture in a networked era: A conversation on youth, learning, commerce, and politics. Malden: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Junco, Reynol. 2013. Inequalities in Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior 29(6): 2328–2336. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lauzen, Martha M. 2007. Boxed in: Women on screen and behind the scenes in the 2006–07 prime-time season. San Diego: San Diego State University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenhart, Amanda. 2015. Teens, social media and technology overview 2015. Pew Research Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenhart, Amanda, and Mary Madden. 2005. Teen content creators and consumers. In Pew Internet & American Life Project. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Litt, Eden. 2013. Understanding social network site users’ privacy tool use. Computers in Human Behavior 29(4): 1649–1656. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.01.049.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Litt, Eden, and Eszter Hargittai. 2014. Smile, snap and share? A nuanced approach to privacy and online photosharing. Poetics 42(1): 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, Sonia, and Ellen Helsper. 2007. Gradations in digital inclusion: Children, young people, and the digital divide. New Media and Society 9: 671–696.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez, Lori Kido. 2009. The radical act of ‘mommy blogging’: Redefining motherhood through the blogosphere. New Media and Society 11(5): 729–747. doi:10.1177/1461444809105349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mossberger, Karen, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Mary Stansbury. 2003. Virtual inequality: Beyond the digital divide. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paling, Emma. 2015. Wikipedia’s hostility to women. The Atlantic, October 21. Available at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/how-wikipedia-is-hostile-to-women/411619/.

  • Park, Yong Jin. 2013. Digital literacy and privacy behavior online. Communication Research 40: 215–236. doi:10.1177/0093650211418338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pew Research Center. 2015. Offline population has declined substantially since 2000. Available at http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/28/15-of-americans-dont-use-the-internet-who-are-they/ft_15-07-23_notonline_310px/.

  • Robinson, Laura. 2009. A taste for the necessary. Information, Communication and Society 12(4): 488–507. doi:10.1080/13691180902857678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schradie, Jen. 2011. The digital production gap: The digital divide and Web 2.0 collide. Poetics 39: 145–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schradie, Jen. 2015. The gendered digital production gap: Inequalities of affluence. Communication and Information Technologies Annual 9: 185–213. doi:10.1108/S2050-206020150000009008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Aaron. 2014. African Americans and technology use: A demographic portrait. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Available at http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/06/african-americans-and-technology-use/.

  • Stephens, Monica. 2013. Gender and the GeoWeb: Divisions in the production of user-generated cartographic information. GeoJournal 78(6): 981–996. doi:10.1007/s10708-013-9492-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomaszeski, Michael Steven. 2006. A baseline examination of political bloggers, who they are, their views on the blogosphere, and their influence in agenda-setting via the two-step flow hypothesis. Master of Arts thesis, Department of Communication, Florida State University (1282).

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Deursen, Alexander J.A.M. 2012. Internet skill-related problems in accessing online health information and services. International Journal of Medical Informatics 81(1): 61–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Deursen, Alexander J.A.M., and Jan van Dijk. 2011. Internet skills and the digital divide. New Media and Society 13(6): 893–911.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Dijk, Jan. 2005. The deepening divide: Inequality in the information society. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vedantham, Anu. 2011. Making YouTube and Facebook videos: Gender differences in online video creation among first-year undergraduate students attending a highly selective research university. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wagner, Claudia, Eduardo Graells-Garrido, David Garcia, & Filippo Menczer. 2016. Women through the glass ceiling: gender asymmetries in Wikipedia. EPJ Data Science, 5(1). http://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-016-0066-4

  • Warschauer, Mark. 2003. Technology and social inclusion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wasserman, Ira M., and Marie Richmond-Abbott. 2005. Gender and the internet: Causes of variation in access, level, and scope of use. Social Science Quarterly 86(1): 252–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WordPress. 2015. A live look at activity across wordpress.com. https://wordpress.com/activity/.

  • Yaeger, Taryn. 2012. Who narrates the world? In The OpEd Project Byline Report. http://www.theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=817&Itemid=149.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Eszter Hargittai & Kaitlin Jennrich

Authors
  1. Eszter Hargittai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kaitlin Jennrich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Mark Lloyd

  2. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Lewis A. Friedland

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hargittai, E., Jennrich, K. (2016). The Online Participation Divide. In: Lloyd, M., Friedland, L. (eds) The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94925-0_13

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation