Who dominates the conversation? The effect of gender, discussion medium, and controversy on political discussion

Abstract

Previous research finds that when citizens discuss political topics, men tend to predominate. In this study, we investigate how discussion of political issues changes in different settings, using a design in which male and female participants discussed two political topics—one controversial, the other not—in in a variety of settings. We examine two aspects of discussion: the extent of participation and the style of participation. We find that women participate more extensively than men in general, but that this difference is conditioned on the gender composition of and the size of the group, and whether a topic is controversial. The discussion medium (online or face-to-face) exerts no impact on the extent of participation. Alternatively, whether discussants are agreeable in their comments is most influenced by the topic of discussion and, for men, whether the discussion occurs online or face-to-face.

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