Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Hargittai, Connell, Klawitter & Litt, Northwestern University eszter.com Eszter Hargittai Delaney Family Professor Communication Studies Department Northwestern Aaron Shaw Assistant Professor Communication Studies Department Northwestern University & Faculty Associate Berkman Center for Internet & Society Harvard University aaronshaw.org Northwestern University School of Communication The Skill Divide in Online Participation The Case of Wikipedia

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Why do we care about who edits Wikipedia? One of the most popular Web sites Popular for numerous topics Largest free source of information Billions of monthly page views Millions of volunteer labor hours What do we care who edits Wikipedia, as long as the information there is correct?

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Why do we care about who edits Wikipedia? Other examples: bit.ly/wikigroan  Editor background may affect content  Coverage  Linking  Language  Visibility Details: Halavais & Lackaff 2010 Wagner, Garcia, Jadidi & Strohmaier 2015 Graells-Garrido, Lalmas & Menczer 2015 Cologne

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University There is a gender gap in WP editing 16% of global WP editors 23% of US adult WP editors Women make up an estimated: Hill, B.M., & Shaw, A. (2013). The Wikipedia Gender Gap Revisited: Characterizing Survey Response Bias with Propensity Score Estimation. PLOS ONE, 8(6)

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Most existing work has… Looked for answers within the community analyzing Community culture Dynamics of contribution but…

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University … women are not showing up to edit in the first place Why? Prevalent research design is not able to address this – limited data on non-editors

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Women and men differ in their contributions to online content These differences have been tied to people’s Web-use skills

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Differences in Wikipedia contributions (2012) by general Internet skill (2009) Hargittai, E. & Shaw, A. (2015) Mind the skills gap: the role of Internet know-how and gender in differentiated contributions to Wikipedia. Information, Communication & Society. 18(4):

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University  Google Consumer Surveys (GCS)  US Internet users  “surveywall”  approximates demographic & location information based on IP address & Double Click cookie  Stratified sampling targeting CPS estimates of US Internet user demographics  Up to 10 questions More on GCS McDonald, P., M. Mohebbi, and B. Slatkin Comparing Google Consumer Surveys to Existing Probability and Non-Probability Based Internet Surveys. Mountain View, CA: Google, Inc. Data collection

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University  US adults 18 and over  Platforms used for reaching them:  News sites 55.7%  Mobile 16.7%  Arts sites 12.7%  Reference sites 5.3%  Other sites: 9.3%  898 respondents  Two attentiveness questions (81.5% correct)  Final sample size: 732 Data collection

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University 732 US adults Female: 44.8% Age: 44.6 (16.6) Income: $47K ($26K) Education: High school or less: 19.5% Some college: 23.9% College or more: 56.6% Data – background

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Hashtags are most widely used in which place?  Blogs  Ebay  Livejournal  Twitter  90.3%  Wikipedia  YouTube Data – Internet skills

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Data – Internet skills "Wiki" is a Web application used by thousands of Web sites that allows people to add, modify, or delete content in collaboration with others.  True  78.6%  False

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Data – Internet skills When a company posts a privacy policy, it ensures that the company keeps confidential all the information it collects on users.  False  51.9%  True

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Experiences with Wikipedia editing Have you ever edited a Wikipedia page by fixing a mistake or adding new material? 15.3% Have you ever started a new page on Wikipedia? 8.7% Either: 22.4%

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Experiences with Wikipedia editing Has anyone ever explained to you how to edit Wikipedia? Friend of family member4.8% Coworker1.0% Librarian0.7% Teacher or professor 0 Other2.5% Anyone: 8.1%

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University How likely is someone to edit WP? Women18.5% Men26.0% Someone has explained WP editing35.6% No one has explained WP editing21.2% Knows what “wiki” means24.3% Does not know what “wiki” means15.3% Understands privacy policies25.5% Does not understand privacy policies19.0%

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Logistic regression on who edits WP Odds RatioSt. Err. P Age Female Edu (=<HS) Edu (SC) Income (l) Has received info Skill: hashtag Skill: wiki Skill: privacy N=536

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Age matters (not linear) Gender matters Internet skills matter Support matters Take-aways Next steps Work on questions Survey more representative sample

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Thanks to Dan Russell Google Research

Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University Thank I am happy to answer questions and to hear your ideas