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National and Gender Diversity in Communication
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Description: The corresponding journal article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2020.1804434 Researchers’ national and gender diversity are some of the most important goals of our discipline in order to ensure the representation of diverse perspectives. And much has been done at the level of universities and associations to follow-up on this goal. Nevertheless, there ist still room for development and the status-quo needs continuous monitoring. Diversity can be made tangible by examing the diversity of authors and board members of scientific journals. We conducted a content analysis of the national and gender diversity of authors and editorial board members of six communication journals between 2006 and 2016. National diversity is low in journals and editorial boards: 80% of the 18,175 authors are affiliated with 11% of the 91 nations; however, national diversity has significantly increased across all journals. Gender distribution is balanced among US authors, but not among authors from other continents. Editorial boards have significantly more male than female members. We will discuss the necessity to develop benchmarks, how to weigh in research quality and diversity, and, we suggest measures to achieve diversity in academic associations, universities and research institutions.