TY - JOUR
T1 - Gender-related and geographic trends in interactions between radiotherapy professionals on Twitter
AU - Berger, Thomas
AU - Payan, Neree
AU - Fleury, Emmanuelle
AU - Davey, Angela
AU - Bryce-Atkinson, Abigail
AU - Vasquez Osorio, Eliana
AU - Yang, Zhuolin
AU - McMullan, Thomas
AU - Shelley, Leila E.A.
AU - Gasnier, Anne
AU - Bertholet, Jenny
AU - Aznar, Marianne C.
AU - Nailon, William H.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Chiara Gasparotto, deputy CEO of ESTRO, for providing assistance with ESTRO resources and statistics which put the present findings into perspective and greatly improved our study. This work was only possible because of the techniques developed in separate project, the IMAGE-INE project, which was generously supported by 1) The Chief Scientist Office Scotland IMAGE-INE grant (TCS/17/26 - CSO Award) and 2) the NHS Lothian Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation (SC007342) Jamie King Uro-Oncology Endowment Fund.
Funding Information:
This work was only possible because of the techniques developed in separate project, the IMAGE-INE project, which was generously supported by 1) The Chief Scientist Office Scotland IMAGE-INE grant (TCS/17/26 - CSO Award) and 2) the NHS Lothian Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation (SC007342) Jamie King Uro-Oncology Endowment Fund.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
© 2022 The Authors.
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - COVID-19
KW - ESTRO
KW - ESTRO congress
KW - gender bias
KW - radiotherapy
KW - social media
KW - trends
KW - twitter
KW - virtual congress
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141954324&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/dd7c6d87-f01c-33ac-9ba3-e395048124fa/
U2 - 10.1016/j.phro.2022.11.002
DO - 10.1016/j.phro.2022.11.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 36439328
SN - 2405-6316
VL - 24
SP - 129
EP - 135
JO - Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology
JF - Physics and Imaging in Radiation Oncology
ER -
