Women learn while men talk?: revisiting gender differences in political engagement in online environments

ABSTRACT

There is an inconclusive debate on whether male and female users of social media platforms engage with political content differently. While some highlight minimal differences, others evidence an engagement gap where male are more visible within online environments. Drawing on data from a representative survey of citizens in France, the UK and USA, we explore the engagement gap in more granular detail. Our data show minimal gender differences for most forms of online political engagement, but there remain some indications of a gendered divide. While the feeling of external efficacy is crucial to engage online regardless gender, women appear to need a sense of higher levels of competence in order to engage with online political content, especially for sharing and commenting. The study confirms interest in politics, extreme political ideological views and large social media network as prompt for more eager political engagement, but we do not find any substantial gender differentiation. Our findings suggest some minimal country differences on women engagement in commenting. Overall, our data indicate that while women may be as likely as men to participate in online political expression, through sharing and commenting, and may have an equal overall share of voice, the voices of many women are at least more muted in open public political discussions environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender gap
• social media
• political engagement
• political activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Project was funded by Audencia Foundation project Innovation and stability.

Notes on contributors

Darren Lilleker

Darren Lilleker is Professor of Political Communication in the Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University, UK. His research focuses on the nexus between political campaigns and voter engagement, trust and self-efficacy as conceptualized in his work Political Communication and Cognition (Palgrave, 2014).

Karolina Koc-Michalska

Karolina Koc-Michalska (PhD, Silesia University) is a Full Professor at Audencia Business School and has affiliations with CEVIPOF Sciences Po Paris, France, and University of Silesia, Faculty of Social Sciences, Poland. Her research focuses on the communicational strategies of political actors in the online environment and citizens' political engagement. She employs a comparative approach focusing on the United States and European countries.

Bruce Bimber

Bruce Bimber (PhD, MIT) is a professor in the Department of Political Science and Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on how the digital media context shapes collective action and public opinion.