Does Anonymity Matter? A Discoursal Study of Gender Recognition on Arabic Facebook Comments
Abstract
This study considered the recognition of persons' gender through the differences of the discoursal features and stylistic choices of their Arabic Facebook comments. Three hundred comments on different topics were collected from same-/cross-sex interactions of friends, acquaintances and relatives having similar educational and social backgrounds and with an age range 20- 50. Some research questions were raised as to whether males and females differed in terms of the discoursal features of their comments as well as the ability to recognize the person's gender on the basis of these features. Accordingly, some hypotheses were formulated, viz. males' and females' comments involved distinguished gendered discoursal features and styles, females behaved in line with maintenance roles while males behaved in line with task- oriented roles, and the persons' gender could be predicted through applying the gendered features they had. The study came up with various conclusions that, to some extent, confirmed the hypotheses stated.
References
Ahmad, S., Rafiq, M., & Ahmad, S. (2018), Gender disparities in the use of internet among graduate students of a developing society. Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 67(4), 226-243.
https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-11-2017-0092
Arize, E. (1996). Men and women in Interaction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Berchmeir, Z., Dietz-Uhler, B. and Stasser, G. (Eds.) (2011). Strategic Uses of Social Technology: An Interactive Perspective of Social Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139042802
Crowston, K. and Kammerer, E. (2010). Communication Style and Gender Differences in Computer- Mediated Communication. Retrieved from https://crowston. syr.edu/content/communicative-style-and-gender-differences-computer-mediated-communications
Fischer, A. (2011). Gender in Face-to- Face Communication and CMC. In A. Nicole and Kramer C.: Face- to- Face Communication Over the Internet (pp. 53-79). New York: Cambridge Unversity.
Herring, S. (1995). Men's language on the Internet. (Proceedings of the 2nd Nordic Language and Gender Conference) Retrieved 2017, Aug 17 from
http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/men.1995.pdf
Herring, S. (1996).Posting in a different voice: Gender and ethics in computer- mediated communication. In: C. Ess (Ed.): Philosophical Perspectives on Computer- Mediated Communication (pp.115- 145). Albany: State University of New York Press.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-415040-9.50121-4
Herring, S. (2000).Gender differences in CMC: Findings and implications. The CPSR Newsletter, 18(1)
Herring, S. (2003).Gender and Power in an Online Communication. In J. Holmes and Meyerhoff, M. (Eds.): The Handbook of Language and Gender (pp.202- 229). New York, NY: Blackwell Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch9
Herring, S., & Stoerger, S. (2013). Gender and anonymity in Computer-Mediated Communication. In J. Holmes, M. Meyerhoff, & S. Ehrlich, (Eds.): Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality (2nd ed.) (pp. 567-586). NJ: Wiley- Blackwell Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118584248.ch29
Holmes, J. (2006). Gender Talk at Work. USA: Black Well Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470754863
Kapidzic, S. and Herring, S. (2011). Gender, Communication and Self- Presentation in Teen Chatrooms Revisited: Have Patterns Changed?. Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication, 17(1), 39- 59.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01561.x
Li, Q. (2005). Gender and CMC: A Review on Conflict and Harassment. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(3), 382- 406.
https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.1327
Li, N., & Kirkup, G. (2018). Gender and cultural differences in Internet use: a study of China and the UK.Computers and Education, 48(2), 301-317.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.01.007
Lin, X., & Wang, X. (2019).Examining gender differences in people's information- sharing decisions on social networking sites. International Journal of Information Management, 50, 45-56.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.05.004
Miller, J., & Durndell, A. (2004). Gender, Language and Computer- Mediated Communication. In K. Morgan, Sancher, J. Brebbia, C. and Voiskounsky, A. (Eds.): Human Perspectives in the Internet Society: Culture, Psychology and Gender (pp. 235- 244). USA: WIT Press.
Mustafa, B., İrem, H., Kozan, Ö and Kesici, Ş (2018). Gender differences in and the relationships between social anxiety and problematic Internet use: Canonical analysis. The Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(1).
https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.8947
Rollero, C., Daniele, A. and Tartaglia, S. (2019). Do men post and women view? The role of gender, personality and emotions in online social activity. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 13(1), 1
https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2019-1-1
Sambasivan, N. (2019). Moving toward a gender equitable internet. Retrieved from https://www.blog.google/technology/next-billion-users/towards-gender-equity-online
Savicki, V., Foster, D. and Kelley, M. (2006). Gender, Group Composition and Task Type in Virtual Teams. In M. Davidson & Barrett, M. (Eds.): Gender and Communication Issues at Work (pp. 270- 282). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing.
Sussman, N. and Tyson, D. (2000). Sex and power: Gender differences in computer- mediated communication. Computers in Human Behaviour, 16(4), 381- 394.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0747-5632(00)00020-0
Thomson, R. (2006). The Effects of Topic of Discussion on Gendered Language in Computer- Mediated Communication Discussion. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 25(2), 167- 178.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X06286452
Weatherall, A. (2005). Gender, Language and Discourse. New York: Taylor & Francis.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203988817
Yates, S. (1997). Gender, identity and CMC. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 13 (4), 281- 290.
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
