Discrimination, social media and economists
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2025 4:59 am
In order to verify how discrimination impacts the formation of professional networks, which according to Sant'Anna is so relevant for individuals in this area, the researchers chose to study Twitter. The idea came not only because it is a social network widely used in the academic world, but also because economists use Twitter a lot in a professional sense to share articles and discuss current issues.
“It is very common for people to first meet on this network and then one individual invites the other to visit their institution or, perhaps, to write an article together,” Sant'Anna pointed out. For the researcher, this social media is capable of replicating contact networks that exist outside the online environment, so having a solid presence on Twitter can contribute to professional results.
Building the experiment
The study created several fictitious accounts that claimed to be PhD students at universities in the United States. “Using Artificial Intelligence tools, we manipulated vp it email database these three categories: gender, race, and the ranking of the university where the individual studied.” The researcher emphasizes that these universities were selected from a ranking that elects the 10 best universities in the entire North American country, in addition to other universities with less recognized positions, occupying 70th to 100th place, in the US News Ranking 2020, in the Graduate Economics Department category.
These fictitious accounts posted the same content and topics, and were identical except for three characteristics: race, gender, and ranking position. All of the accounts began following the profiles of real professionals who were part of the academic world. To find these accounts, a famous hashtag for the economist community, #econtwitter, was used. In total, 10,000 people from this community who used the hashtag were selected to be followed by the fictitious profiles.
“We observed which accounts had reciprocity and were followed back, that is, invited to be part of the professional network. Since they were identical except for the three manipulated characteristics, we were able to identify that discrimination was the main factor for a person not being followed back,” explained Sant'Anna.
“It is very common for people to first meet on this network and then one individual invites the other to visit their institution or, perhaps, to write an article together,” Sant'Anna pointed out. For the researcher, this social media is capable of replicating contact networks that exist outside the online environment, so having a solid presence on Twitter can contribute to professional results.
Building the experiment
The study created several fictitious accounts that claimed to be PhD students at universities in the United States. “Using Artificial Intelligence tools, we manipulated vp it email database these three categories: gender, race, and the ranking of the university where the individual studied.” The researcher emphasizes that these universities were selected from a ranking that elects the 10 best universities in the entire North American country, in addition to other universities with less recognized positions, occupying 70th to 100th place, in the US News Ranking 2020, in the Graduate Economics Department category.
These fictitious accounts posted the same content and topics, and were identical except for three characteristics: race, gender, and ranking position. All of the accounts began following the profiles of real professionals who were part of the academic world. To find these accounts, a famous hashtag for the economist community, #econtwitter, was used. In total, 10,000 people from this community who used the hashtag were selected to be followed by the fictitious profiles.
“We observed which accounts had reciprocity and were followed back, that is, invited to be part of the professional network. Since they were identical except for the three manipulated characteristics, we were able to identify that discrimination was the main factor for a person not being followed back,” explained Sant'Anna.