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Issues

Citation Politics

Another issue is citation politics, which describes how citation shapes power structures by dictating the legitimacy of published authors and their work. As ideas are frequently reproduced through citation, they accrue increasing intellectual value. Research suggests that the number of times that an academic article gets cited has a direct impact on the author’s academic prestige and recognition, promotion opportunities, and potential impact in their respective fields. The Matthew Effect (Matthew) and The Matilda Effect (Matilda) describe phenomena to this effect.

However, evidence indicates that external factors may influence the likelihood of a paper getting cited. For example, citation counts have been shown to favor researchers from the Global North and thus can undervalue researchers from the Global South and from minority communities. In addition, male names tend to get cited disproportionately more frequently than female names. Smith and Garrett-Scott have also argued that black women in the anthropological field are rarely ever cited by non-black women.

Researchers have suggested combating inequality in citation politics with the use of a Citation Diversity Statement, a statement that would include the proportions of citations used in a scholarly article in terms of gender, race, and/or ethnicity. Another option is the formation of campaigns like #CiteBlackWomen that promote awareness of citational disparity.