Abstract
This study explores the discourse of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics or medicine (STEM) fields produced by Twitter users on social media, with a particular focus on language usage and function in this discourse. The exploration of the women in STEM discourse was achieved by collecting a body of tweets using popular hashtags addressing women in STEM from the last week of October 2017. Following a corpus-based approach, this study analyzes the most frequent evaluative adjectives and 4-grams. Results from the analysis of evaluative adjectives show that Twitter users represent women in STEM fields positively by using positive adjectives such as great, amazing, inspirational etc. Furthermore, the analysis of the most frequent 4-grams reveals that Twitter users employ hashtags such as #ilooklikeasurgeon and #womeninSTEM to promote the work of women in STEM fields, show their appreciation of women working and studying in STEM and challenge prevalent gender stereotypes of STEM professions. It was found that the production of women in STEM discourse by most Twitter users has contributed to increasing the strength of women in the STEM community in social media, evidenced by their practices of advocacy, networking and challenging gender biases online. The discourse of women in STEM in social media is an example of discursive activism that focuses on the larger dialogue of women in STEM and highlights dominant forms of sexism and gendered stereotypes of women’s work in male dominated professions.
Highlights
1.1 Introduce the ProblemHashtag activism and digital feminism have emerged recently on social media platforms to raise awareness, build allegiances, resist stereotypes and offer solidarity for women (See for reference Konnelly [2015] and Everett [2018])
It was found that the production of women in STEM discourse by most Twitter users has contributed to increasing the strength of women in the STEM community in social media, evidenced by their practices of advocacy, networking and challenging gender biases online
This study investigated language used involving women in STEM discourse in social media during 2017 using a corpus-based approach
Summary
1.1 Introduce the ProblemHashtag activism and digital feminism have emerged recently on social media platforms to raise awareness, build allegiances, resist stereotypes and offer solidarity for women (See for reference Konnelly [2015] and Everett [2018]). Twitter provides a supportive platform for women working in STEM fields via participation in specific hashtags. Such active participation in STEM hashtags forms a diversity campaign to encourage more girls to be involved in STEM contests or to be enrolled in STEM courses. The status, opportunities and challenges for women in STEM is worthy of being studied from a discourse analysis perspective in order to find out more about the nuances of women’s experiences of working in STEM fields (Note 1). In line with previous arguments, this study contributes to the recent body of research investigating the ways social media is used to support women’s scholarships and professional practice in STEM fields.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
