A BIBLIOMETRIC OVERVIEW ON GENDER AND SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH

Abstract

Gender is a cultural and psychological concept that includes a number of social norms. The concept, which is attributed to individuals from birth and associated with the state of being a woman or a man, consists of social roles, behaviours and expectations. Gender is a biological element that generally refers to the state of being a woman or a man. Gender, on the other hand, is associated with the social and cultural environment in which the individual lives. The roles and behaviour patterns attributed to women and men contribute to the social construction of gender in social media channels where individuals interact intensively today. Because social media reflects the ways in which gender is understood and performed in modern societies. Different platforms, cultures and social contexts greatly influence how gender is understood and experienced in online spaces. In this context, this study aims to map the reflection of the concept of gender on social media in postgraduate theses written in Turkey. For this purpose, theses on "gender and social media" written between 2013 and 2023, covering the last 10 years, were analysed through bibliometric analysis. A total of 189 theses on the subject were reached by advanced search with keywords from the National Thesis Centre database of YÖK, and 97 theses that were suitable for the purpose and scope of the study after various filtering were taken into consideration. Of these theses, 85 are master's theses and 12 are doctoral theses. It was observed that postgraduate theses on gender and social media were addressed with different dimensions in many different disciplines and departments. Another striking finding is that the majority of the supervisors and authors of the studies are women. While qualitative research method was mostly used in the studies, it was observed that in addition to the use of single social media channels, multiple analyses of more than one social media channel were mostly performed.