How accurate are gender detection tools in predicting the gender for Chinese names? A study with 20,000 given names in Pinyin format

Objective:We recently showed that the gender detection tools NamSor, Gender API, and Wiki-Gendersort accurately predicted the gender of individuals with Western given names. Here, we aimed to evaluate the performance of these tools with Chinese given names in Pinyin format.Methods:We constructed two datasets for the purpose of the study. File #1 was created by randomly drawing 20,000 names from a gender-labeled database of 52,414 Chinese given names in Pinyin format. File #2, which contained 9,077 names, was created by removing from File #1 all unisex names that we were able to identify (i.e., those that were listed in the database as both male and female names). We recorded for both files the number of correct classifications (correct gender assigned to a name), misclassifications (wrong gender assigned to a name), and nonclassifications (no gender assigned). We then calculated the proportion of misclassifications and nonclassifications (errorCoded).Results:For File #1, errorCoded was 53% for NamSor, 65% for Gender API, and 90% for Wiki-Gendersort. For File #2, errorCoded was 43% for NamSor, 66% for Gender API, and 94% for Wiki-Gendersort.Conclusion:We found that all three gender detection tools inaccurately predicted the gender of individuals with Chinese given names in Pinyin format and therefore should not be used in this population.     

Using genderize.io to infer the gender of first names: how to improve the accuracy of the inference

Objective:We recently showed that genderize.io is not a sufficiently powerful gender detection tool due to a large number of nonclassifications. In the present study, we aimed to assess whether the accuracy of inference by genderize.io can be improved by manipulating the first names in the database.Methods:We used a database containing the first names, surnames, and gender of 6,131 physicians practicing in a multicultural country (Switzerland). We uploaded the original CSV file (file #1), the file obtained after removing all diacritic marks, such as accents and cedilla (file #2), and the file obtained after removing all diacritic marks and retaining only the first term of the compound first names (file #3). For each file, we computed three performance metrics: proportion of misclassifications (errorCodedWithoutNA), proportion of nonclassifications (naCoded), and proportion of misclassifications and nonclassifications (errorCoded).Results:naCoded, which was high for file #1 (16.4%), was reduced after data manipulation (file #2: 11.7%, file #3: 0.4%). As the increase in the number of misclassifications was small, the overall performance of genderize.io (i.e., errorCoded) improved, especially for file #3 (file #1: 17.7%, file #2: 13.0%, and file #3: 2.3%).Conclusions:A relatively simple manipulation of the data improved the accuracy of gender inference by genderize.io. We recommend using genderize.io only with files that were modified in this way.     

Object lessons: Using trans porn in class to explore gender fluidity

Gender categories and gender fluidity can be explicitly performed and demonstrated in sexually explicit media such as pornography. In this class lesson, a rhetoric/performance studies class on pornography focuses on trans* performers in scenes. A critical communication pedagogical approach is used to encourage dialogue and intersectional analyses of trans* identities and erotics in the scenes.

Courses: Media Studies, Porn Studies, Popular Culture, Critical/Cultural Communication, Gender in Communication, LGBTQ Studies in Communication, Sex Communication

Objectives: Students will (1) gain knowledge about gender identity, sexuality, and sex work; (2) increase their skills in critical thinking on the fluidity of gender and sexuality; and (3) demonstrate the capacity to be more attentive to trans issues in conversation.     

Gender on the box: Self-reflexivity as a starting point

This self-reflexive activity acts as an introduction to how we talk about and express gender identity, as well as the assumptions we may have about gender identity norms and expression. The activity illuminates student’s subconscious behaviors and understandings of gender, pushing them to sit self-reflexively with their own understandings of gender as an identity, expression, binary, and potential locus of shame/freedom.

Courses: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, Intercultural Communication, Media Studies, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to introduce students to their own understandings and embodiment of gender, this activity asks students to be honest about their preconceived notions regarding gender that they bring with them into the classroom. The activity utilizes predesigned components that test students’ subconscious knowledge of the gender binary. This is a one-time activity that can be conducted in one 50- or 75-minute class period.     

The names that bind us

Course: Gender Communication

Objectives: The aims of this activity are (1) to illustrate, through language, the ways in which names artificially polarize individuals, and (2) to demonstrate the power of words to frame reality and perspective.     

Clothes Make the Person? Performing Gender Through Fashion

Objectives: Students will: (1) think critically about how they perform gender through clothing choices and (2) recognize how different cultures define masculinity and femininity

Courses: Communication Theory, Gender and Communication, Popular Communication, Rhetorical Theory, Visual Rhetoric     

Proverb Activity: Understanding How Perception and Gender Stereotypes are Formed

Objectives: Students will understand perception and apply step-by-step skills in a personally relevant way by rethinking taken-for-granted proverbs related to gender stereotypes

Courses: Gender and Communication, Intercultural Communication, Interpersonal Communication     

Gender,Games, and Toys: Role Communication and Socialization through Play

Courses: Introduction to Communication, Gender and Communication, Rhetoric and Criticism, Intercultural Communication, Organizational Communication

Objectives: Students will develop a basic understanding of how femininity and masculinity are distinct, constructed, and culturally enforced. Students will investigate how gender roles are reinforced by children's games and toys.     

Illuminating everyday performances of privilege and oppression

ABSTRACT

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Interracial Communication, Gender and Communication, Introduction to Communication Course (within a unit on culture), and any courses encouraging critical analyses of power.

Objectives: This activity will: illuminate the ways in which everyday performances of privilege and resulting oppressions connect with symbolic, individual, and institutional ideologies and actions; identify the ways in which individuals who are marginalized and oppressed may internalize and/or resist dominant ideologies and actions through such performances of privilege; recognize how individual biographies play into our everyday communication and performances with/of power; encourage intersectional analyses of identity, context, and performances of/with power; and develop communication tools for disrupting and speaking back to oppressive performances of privilege.     

A health literacy analysis of the consumer-oriented COVID-19 information produced by ten state health departments

Objective:The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the public''s need for quality health information that is understandable. This study aimed to identify (1) the extent to which COVID-19 messaging by state public health departments is understandable, actionable, and clear; (2) whether materials produced by public health departments are easily readable; (3) relationships between material type and understandability, actionability, clarity, and reading grade level; and (4) potential strategies to improve public health messaging around COVID-19.Methods:Based on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics from June 30, 2020, we identified the ten states with the most COVID-19 cases and selected forty-two materials (i.e., webpages, infographics, and videos) related to COVID-19 prevention according to predefined eligibility criteria. We applied three validated health literacy tools (i.e., Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool, CDC Clear Communication Index, and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level) to assess material understandability, actionability, clarity, and readability. We also analyzed correlations between scores on the three health literacy tools and material types.Results:Overall, COVID-19 materials had high understandability and actionability but could be improved in terms of clarity and readability. Material type was significantly correlated with understandability, actionability, and clarity. Infographics and videos received higher scores on all tools.Conclusions:Based on our findings, we recommend public health entities apply a combination of these tools when developing health information materials to improve their understandability, actionability, and clarity. We also recommend using infographics and videos when possible, taking a human-centered approach to information design, and providing multiple modes and platforms for information delivery.     

Star gazing: Transing gender communication

ABSTRACT

This activity implores students and pedagogues to engage intrapersonal gender subjectivity through the analytic practice of transing gender communication. Specifically, Yep, Russo, and Allen (Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 69–89) suggest gender is best understood as: (1) intersectional, (2) a performative and administrative accomplishment, (3) multiple, and (4) self-determined. Students are asked to analyze their gender sense of self through each of the pillars in a hands-on creative activity. The end result is a means of narrating one’s own gender in relational tension with other gender subjectivities.

Courses: Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to accompany a sustained conversation on questions of gender and communication, this unit- or semester-long activity imparts a critical approach to gender understanding through one’s own subjective gender experience by engaging the analytic work of “transing” (Stryker, Currah, & Moore, Introduction: Trans-, trans, or transgender? WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2008;36(3–4):13). Further, the activity equips students with a working understanding of trans-affirming discourse including the critical capacity to de-center normative gender through lived experience. Finally, students are provided a space in which to explore and voice, through creative means, their own gender “galaxy” (Yep, Russo, & Allen, Pushing boundaries: Toward the development of a model for transing communication in (inter)cultural contexts. In L. G. Spencer & J. C. Capuzza (Eds.), Transgender communication studies: Histories, trends, and trajectories. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015, p. 70).     

Let's go toy shopping! Exploring early anticipatory socialization for careers and gender expectations

Courses: Gender Communication, Communication and Careers, Organizational Communication.

Objectives: At the end of the activity, students will be able: to identify and analyze the socialization of gender expectations, to recognize and describe how early this type of socialization can occur, to critique the early socialization of gendered career expectations through the analysis of toy-store shopping, and to propose new ways to approach this experience.     

International Communications

James L. Tyson, TARGET AMERICA: THE INFLUENCE OF COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA ON U.S. MEDIA (Chicago: Regnery Gateway Inc., 1981—$12.95)

Harry L. Helms, HOW TO TUNE THE SECRET SHORTWAVE SPECTRUM (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1981—$7.95, paper)

U.S. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION AGENCY'S OVERSEAS PROGRAMS: SOME MORE USEFUL THAN OTHERS (Washington: GAO, Report ID-82-1, February 11, 1982, —free on request, paper)

"New Communication Order," HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE MASS MEDIA DECLARATION (Paris: Unesco, n.d., but 1981—free on request, paper)     

Consider Clicking In: Using Audience Response Systems to Spark Discussion

Courses: Any large-lecture format, communication course.

Objectives: Students will apply and evaluate course concepts through daily discussion activities and class dialogues supported by audience response systems (i.e., clickers).     

Cable and Telecommunications

William A. Lucas and Robert K. Yin's Serving Local Needs with Telecommunications (Santa Monica, Calif: Rand Corporation Report R-1345-MF, November 1973—$3.00, paper).

Fred B. Wood's The Potential for Congressional Use of Emergent Telecommunications: An Exploratory Assessment (Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, Program of Policy Studies in Science and Technology, May 1974—apparently free on request)

Walter S. Baer, Michael Botein, Leland L. Johnson, Carl Pilnick, Monroe E. Price, and Robert K. Yin's Cable Television: Franchising Considerations (New York: Crane, Russak, & Co., 1974-=T13.50)

Charles G. Woodard's Cable Television: Acquisition and Operation of CATV Systems (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974—$27.50)

Planning Interconnection Systems: Options for the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Washington, D.C.: Cable Television Information Center, 2100 M St. N.W., 1974-47.50, paper)

Cablelines (Cable Communications Resource Center, 1900 L St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036—monthly/free on request)     

Who's in the picture: Comparing census data with newspaper coverage

Courses: Communications Research, Mass Communications in Modern Society, and Race, Gender, and Media.

Objectives: As a single or multiple class activity (depending on the length of the class period), the aims of this assignment are to increase the student's ability to apply content analysis methods in an actual media context, to develop an understanding of the agenda setting/framing function of the press, and to analyze the portrayal of gender and diversity in media. The activity can be completed in one class period if the class is at least 1:15 minutes long, but at least two class periods are recommended. Alternatively, the instructor could introduce each of the three sections with a brief lecture and then complete the activity over a three-class period span.     

Cable TV

Robert L. Steiner, Visions of Cablevision: The Prospects for Cable Television in the Greater Cincinnati Area (Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, 1017 Provident Tower, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202–free to residents of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana; $3.00 to others)

Cable TV: for the Neighborhood and For the Region (Citizens League, 84 South 6th St., Minneapolis, Minn. 55402–free on request)     

4. ELECTRONIC MEDIA

Dorothy Ganfield Fowler's Unmailable: Congress and the Post Office (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1977- $14.50)

Current Developments in CATV and Pay Television (Practising Law Institute, 810 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10019—$20.00, paper, with discounts if adopted in quantity for class use).

Broadcasting and the Government: A Status Report prepared by the Relations and Legal Departments of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB, 1771 N St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036—free on request)

Allen Hyman and M. Bruce Johnson, eds., Advertising and Free Speech (Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books [D.C. Heath] , 1977—$12.50     

Foreign and International Media

G. Stuart Adam's Journalism, Communication and the Law (Scarborough, Ontario: Prentice-Hall of Canada Ltd., 1976---price not given, paper)

T.J. Allard's The C.A.B. Story: 1926- 1976, Private Broadcasting in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Association of Broadcasters, 1976---apparently free on request, paper)

Comptroller General of the United States, Suggestions to Improve Management of Radio Free Europe' Radio Liberty (Washington: General Accounting Office, 1976---either free or $1.00 depending on your classification (see 7:150), paper)

Television and the February 1974 General Election by Trevor Pateman (1974, 78 pp., $2.60)

Television News by Richard Collins (1976, 56 pp., $2.60)

Benno Signitzer's Regulation of Direct Broadcasting from Satellites (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1976---$12.50)

Robert F. Amove (ed.) Educational Television: A Policy Critique and Guide for Developing Countries (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1976---$15.00)

B.D. Dhawan's Economics of Television in India (New Delhi: S. Cahnd & Co. Ltd., 1974--Rs 35, current conversion to dollars not known but about $7.00)

Broadcasting in Asia and the Pacific (Philadelphia: Temple University Press/Heinemann Educational Books, 1977--$25.00/and a yet to be announced lower paperback price)

Guided Press in Southeast Asia: National Development vs. Freedom of Expression (Buffalo: SUNY at Buffalo Council on International Studies, Special Studies Series, 1976---price not yet announced)

Cultural Pluralism in Malaysia (Dekalb, III.: Northern Illinois University Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Special Report No. 14, 1976--price not yet announced)     

Gender Differences in Language Use

Objective: To provide students with an understanding of gender differences in language through analysis of written paragraphs

Courses: Communicating Gender, Interpersonal Communication, Research Methods