Fewer and Later: Women as Experts in TED Talks about COVID-19

Abstract

The dissemination of science has undergone a major upsurge in recent years thanks to the Internet, which has served to overcome many of the technical and economic barriers. Among the many initiatives, one of the most successful tools has been the TED Talks website. At the same time, various studies indicate that women produce less science dissemination content and that they are also more likely to receive hostile comments. The objective of this research is to analyze from a gender perspective the content published on the TED Talk website on COVID-19 from 1 March 2020 to 31 March 2021 (n = 62) to determine its characteristics and the topics addressed, as well as the resulting engagement and the predominant feelings of the comments received. To do this, a content analysis of the publications has been carried out, as well as a qualitative analysis of the comments. The results indicate that the percentage of women experts on this platform is slightly lower than that of men (42.19%), and they have published content in later phases of the pandemic. From a qualitative point of view there are also differences, since women mainly opt for a social, political and social approach to the issue. In addition, the engagement of their publications is lower than that of men, although a higher prevalence of negative feelings is perceived in the comments they receive.