Berger, Thomas; Payan, Neree; Fleury, Emmanuelle; Davey, Angela; Bryce-Atkinson, Abigail; Vasquez Osorio, Eliana; Yang, Zhuolin; McMullan, Thomas; Shelley, Leila E A; Gasnier, Anne; Bertholet, Jenny; Aznar, Marianne C; Nailon, William H (2022). Gender-related and geographic trends in interactions between radiotherapy professionals on Twitter. Physics and imaging in radiation oncology, 24, pp. 129-135. Elsevier 10.1016/j.phro.2022.11.002
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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Twitter presence in academia has been linked to greater research impact which influences career progression. The purpose of this study was to analyse Twitter activity of the radiotherapy community around ESTRO congresses with a focus on gender-related and geographic trends.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Tweets, re-tweets and replies, here designated as interactions, around the ESTRO congresses held in 2012-2021 were collected. Twitter activity was analysed temporally and, for the period 2016-2021, the geographical span of the ESTRO Twitter network was studied. Tweets and Twitter users collated during the 10 years analysed were ranked based on number of 'likes', 're-tweets' and followers, considered as indicators of leadership/influence. Gender representation was assessed for the top-end percentiles.
RESULTS
Twitter activity around ESTRO congresses was multiplied by 60 in 6 years growing from 150 interactions in 2012 to a peak of 9097 in 2018. In 2020, during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, activity dropped by 60 % to reach 2945 interactions and recovered to half the pre-pandemic level in 2021. Europe, North America and Oceania were strongly connected and remained the main contributors. While overall, 58 % of accounts were owned by men, this proportion increased towards top liked/re-tweeted tweets and most-followed profiles to reach up to 84 % in the top-percentiles.
CONCLUSION
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Twitter activity around ESTRO congresses substantially decreased. Men were over-represented on the platform and in most popular tweets and influential accounts. Given the increasing importance of social media presence in academia the gender-based biases observed may help in understanding the gender gap in career progression.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Haematology, Oncology, Infectious Diseases, Laboratory Medicine and Hospital Pharmacy (DOLS) > Clinic of Radiation Oncology 04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Haematology, Oncology, Infectious Diseases, Laboratory Medicine and Hospital Pharmacy (DOLS) > Clinic of Radiation Oncology > Medical Radiation Physics |
UniBE Contributor: |
Bertholet, Jenny |
Subjects: |
500 Science > 530 Physics 600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health |
ISSN: |
2405-6316 |
Publisher: |
Elsevier |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Pubmed Import |
Date Deposited: |
29 Nov 2022 15:10 |
Last Modified: |
16 May 2023 10:31 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.1016/j.phro.2022.11.002 |
PubMed ID: |
36439328 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
COVID-19 ESTRO ESTRO congress Gender bias Radiotherapy Social media Trends Twitter Virtual congress |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/175259 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/175259 |
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