Abstract
Is there a bias against women’s representation in Wikipedia biographies? Thousands of biographical subjects from six sources are compared against the English-language Wikipedia and the online Encyclopædia Britannica with respect to coverage, gender representation, and article length. We conclude that Wikipedia provides better coverage and longer articles, and that it typically has more articles on women than Britannica in absolute terms, but we also find that Wikipedia articles on women are more likely to be missing than are articles on men relative to Britannica. For both reference works, article length did not consistently differ by gender.
Keywords
Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, gender bias
Subject Categories
Encyclopedias and dictionaries, Sex discrimination
Disciplines
Communication Technology and New Media | Gender and Sexuality
Publisher
USC Annenberg Press
Publication Date
2011
Rights Information
Copyright 2011
Restrictions
(Joseph Reagle & Lauren Rhue). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd).
Rights Holder
Joseph Reagle & Lauren Rhue
Permanent URL
Recommended Citation
Reagle, Joseph M. and Rhue, Lauren, "Gender bias in Wikipedia and Britannica" (2011). Communication Studies Faculty Publications. Paper 1. http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20002078
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COinS
Notes
Originally published in International Journal of Communication 5 (2011), 1138–1158. http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/777