Gender influences in Digital Humanities co-authorship networks

Abstract

PurposeThis paper presents a co-authorship study of authors who published in Digital Humanities journals and examines the apparent influence of gender, or more specifically, the quantitatively detectable influence of gender in the networks they form.Design/methodology/approachThis study applied co-authorship network analysis. Data has been collected from three canonical Digital Humanities journals over 52 years (1966–2017) and analysed.FindingsThe results are presented as visualised networks and suggest that female scholars in Digital Humanities play more central roles and act as the main bridges of collaborative networks even though overall female authors are fewer in number than male authors in the network.Originality/valueThis is the first co-authorship network study in Digital Humanities to examine the role that gender appears to play in these co-authorship networks using statistical analysis and visualisation.

Exploring international collaboration and language dynamics in Digital Humanities: insights from co-authorship networks in canonical journals

“…Following previously published work (Gao et al. , 2022), this study applies co-authorship network analysis but here to explore the geolingual structure of the DH community.…”

“…, 2016; Liu, 2018) communication channels. These connections and collaborations form different networks that have been studied and visualised from various perspectives (Grandjean, 2016; Gao et al. , 2017, 2018; Kemman, 2018).…”

“…Previous work has sought to statistically investigate the co-authorship patterns that manifest in three canonical DH journals ( Computers and the Humanities (Chum) , Literary and Linguistic Computing (LLC) , and Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) ) over a range of 52 years (1966–2017) (Gao et al. , 2022).…”

“…This research found that although single-authored papers were predominant in this period, numbers of co-authored papers were increasing (Nyhan and Duke-Williams, 2014). Further research showed the apparent connection between gender and collaboration in the DH community, and found that women play more central roles and act as main bridges in the collaborative publication networks of the aforementioned journals (Gao et al. , 2022).…”

‘But what for?’ : On the potentials of acknowledging scholastic positionalities

“…How DH may advance will depend on how the relationships between data and power today become challenged, a question Liu found to be hardly brought up in DH associations, conferences, journals, and projects. Some recent publications have grappled with questions of who and what matters in DH, including discussions on diversity [2][3][4][5][6][7][8], intersectionality [9,10], and postcoloniality [11,12]. Also subject of conversation were the slippery boundaries of DH and the making of knowledge in this context [13], as well as the risks imbued in DH criticisms taking on zero-sum rhetorics [14].…”