Significantly more female participants were recruited in this research process; of the 44 responses analysed 29 were from female participants. Such an imbalance is not entirely unexpected: Rosenthal and Rosnow (1975), examining the difference in the willingness to participate of potential male and female research volunteers found that women were slightly more likely to volunteer than men (a median rate of 60% of women, 45% of men across a range of research projects considered (Rosenthal and Rosnow, 1975. p. 22)). More recently Smith (2008), found a significant gender difference in the willingness to complete online surveys, with females more likely to participate than males.
Smith suggests that this gender difference may connect to broader internet usage trends, something that may be relevant to the volunteering rate here. The prerequisite that participants be active social media users may also have had an impact on gender as many social media sites report higher numbers of female users (e.g. Priestley 2011, XPosure Creative Brand Marketing 2011, etc.) and research on household usage of the internet shows that more women engage with social media (Office for National Statistics 2011). A recent Ofcom report (Ofcom 2012,) found that 63% of female respondents and 55% of male respondents had set up their own social networking site profile, they also found that “women are more likely than men to visit social networking sites daily (71% vs. 62%).” (Ofcom 2012, p. 67). Ofcom’s reporting also highlights variance in social media usage by age which may also have implications for the demographic profile of those recruited for my research.
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