Gendered Citation Practices in the Field of Communication

Pervasive gender imbalances exist in the field of communication. In disciplines outside of communication, papers with women as first and last (i.e., senior) authors attract fewer citations than papers with men in those positions. This disparity is partially explained by men’s co-authorship networks. The extent to which co-authorship explains the over-citation of men in communication has not yet been quantified. Using data from 14 communication journals from 1995 to 2018, we find that reference lists include more papers with men as first and last author and fewer papers with women as first and last author than would be expected if gender were unrelated to referencing. This imbalance is driven largely by the citation practices of men and is slowly decreasing over time. The structure of men’s co-authorship networks partly accounts for the observed over-citation of men by other men. We discuss ways researchers might approach gendered citations in their work.