[Air-l] RE: Gender and media preference

[Ledbetter, Andrew Michael]

(I tried to post this earlier in the day using another e-mail client, not sure it got through KU's system; much apologies if this turns up as a repeat posting.)

Quickly, before addressing the subject of this post, many, many deep thanks to
all who responded (and so quickly, in the dead of August!) with sources
regarding postal mail & e-mail... as you might imagine, that section of my
literature review is increasing in both quality and quantity with all the
great new sources. Thanks so much for being willing to share your knowledge!


Regarding sex and e-mail... I recently did an independent study on
gender differences in e-mail usage, and dealt with this topic in the lit
review. Sources I know of (and I’m sure other AoIR people know of others) that
document sex differences in online communication are:


Baron, N. S. (2004). See you online: Gender issues in college student use of
instant messaging. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 23, 397-423.
(Reports that women are more talkative via IM than they are via FtF.)

Boneva, B., & Kraut, R. (2002) Email, gender, and personal relationships.
American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 530-549. In B. Wellman & C. Haythornthwaite
(Eds.), The Internet in everyday life (pp. 372-403). Oxford: Blackwell.
(Reports that women are more likely than men to use e-mail to maintain
long-distance contact with family and friends.)

Hoffman, D. L., Kalsbeek, W. D., Novak, T. P. (1996). Internet and web use in
the U.S. Communications of the ACM, 39, 36-46. (Finds that women enjoy e-mail
more than do men.)

Lee, C. (2003). How Does Instant Messaging Affect Interaction Between the
Genders? Stanford, CA: The Mercury Project for Instant Messaging Studies at
Stanford University. Retrieved April 28, 2005 from
http://www.stanford.edu/class/pwr3-25/group2/projects/lee.html (Finds that
females tend to use greetings and closings in their IM conversations while men
do not.)

Leung, L. (2001). College student motives for chatting on ICQ. New Media &
Society, 3, 483-500. (Finds that college women use IM more than do men.)

Valkenburg, P., & Buijzen, M. (2003). Children, computer games and the
Internet. The Netherlands’ Journal of Social Sciences, 39, 23-34. (Finds young
girls engage in a variety of online communication activities, including e-mail
and chatting, more than do young boys.)

Several of the Pew Internet and American Life studies also find sex
differences in CMC usage; see, for instance: “Teenage life online”
(http://207.21.232.103/PPF/r/36/report_display.asp), “America’s online
pursuits” (http://207.21.232.103/PPF/r/106/report_display.asp), and “Tracking
online life” (http://207.21.232.103/PPF/r/11/report_display.asp).


The telephone is also an interesting comparison, and I know several
researchers have noted that women also use/enjoy the telephone more than do
men, so much so that the telephone is sometimes considered a gendered device:

Fischer, C. S. (1992). America calling: A social history of the telephone to
1940. Berkeley: University of California.

Lacohée, H., & Anderson, B. (2001). Interacting with the telephone.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 54, 665-669.

Moyal, A. (1992). The gendered use of the telephone: An Australian case study.
Media, Culture and Society, 14, 51-72.

Noble, G. (1987). Individual differences, psychological neighbourhoods and use
of the domestic telephone. Media Information Australia, 44, 37-41.


I also have an unpublished paper on sex differences I found in my study of
e-mail social support among college students; in this study, I found that
women showed a strong preference for e-mail social support while men seemed to
prefer FtF support. Just let me know if you’d like to take a look at it and I
can pass it on to you.

Given the research above, my gut reaction is that these gender differences don
’t necessarily boil down to text vs. voice (though perhaps that plays a role
somehow); I think some contextual features (task v. social spaces, for
instance) and relational factors (in my study, relationship type has so far
been a bigger influence on patterns of media usage than sex), socially
constructed roles of men and women, etc. play a large role. Am interested to
hear what other sources people have that might shed more light...

Best wishes in your research! It’s a topic that fascinates me, too, and I
would be interested to hear what your research shows!

Regards,
Andrew

----------------
Andrew M. Ledbetter
Ph.D. student, University of Kansas