Inequality persists in a large citizen science programme despite increased participation through ICT innovations

Jönsson, MariSwedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,SLU Artdatabanken,Swedish Species Information Centre (author)

Biological recording is a prominent and widely practised form of citizen science, but few studies explore long-term demographic trends in participation and knowledge production. We studied long-term demographic trends of age and gender of participants reporting to a large online citizen science multi-taxon biodiversity platform (www.artportalen.se). Adoption by user communities and continually developing Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) greatly increased the number of par- ticipants reporting data, but profound long-term imbalances in gender contribution across species groups persisted over time. Reporters identifying as male dominated in numbers, spent more days in the field reporting and reported more species on each field day. Moreover, an age imbalance towards older participants amplified over time. As the first long-term study of citizen participation by age and gender, our results show that it is important for citizen science project developers to account for cultural and social developments that might exclude participants, and to engage with under- represented and younger participants. This could facilitate the breadth of engagement and learning across a larger societal landscape, ensure project longevity and biodiversity data representation (e.g. mitigate gender bias influence on the number of reports of different species groups).

Kasperowski, Dick,1959Gothenburg University,Göteborgs universitet,Institutionen för filosofi, lingvistik och vetenskapsteori,Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science(Swepub:gu)xkasdi (author)
Coulson, Steven James (author)
Nilsson, JohanSwedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,SLU Artdatabanken,Swedish Species Information Centre(Swepub:slu)46842 (author)
Bına, Pavel (author)
Kullenberg, Christopher,1980Gothenburg University,Göteborgs universitet,Institutionen för filosofi, lingvistik och vetenskapsteori,Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science(Swepub:gu)xkulch (author)
Hagen, NiclasGothenburg University,Göteborgs universitet,Institutionen för filosofi, lingvistik och vetenskapsteori,Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science(Swepub:gu)xhagni (author)
van der Wal, RenéSwedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,Institutionen för ekologi,Department of Ecology (author)
Peterson, JesseSwedish University of Agricultural Sciences,Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet,Institutionen för ekologi,Department of Ecology,University College Cork (author)
Sveriges lantbruksuniversitetSLU Artdatabanken (creator_code:org_t)
Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

In:Ambio: A Journal of Environment and Society53:1, s. 126-1370044-74471654-7209

By the author/editor: Jönsson, Mari; Kasperowski, Dic ...; Coulson, Steven ...; Nilsson, Johan; Bına, Pavel; Kullenberg, Chri ...; show more...; Hagen, Niclas; van der Wal, Ren ...; Peterson, Jesse; show less...

About the subject

SOCIAL SCIENCES: SOCIAL SCIENCES; and Media and Commun ...; and Human Aspects of ...

By the university: University of Gothenburg; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

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