Who Gets ‘to Guru’? Scientist TED Speakers and the Role of Collective Identity in Peer Evaluation of Audience Diversification

Abstract

As producers diversify to additional audiences, they invite scrutiny of themselves and the products they provide, both by external evaluators as well as peer producers. We argue that in certain conditions, audience diversification may suggest producers represent their producer group, prompting special scrutiny by peers. In these cases, peer evaluation of diversification depends on the correspondence between the identity of the diversifying producer and the collective identity of the producer group, such that peers sanction non-prototypical producers and support exemplary producers. We develop and test hypotheses in the context of science, examining how appeals to the general public—giving a TED talk—impact the rate of citation to scientists’ previously published academic articles. We find that the more removed the TED speaker from the field’s prototype—e.g., through unconventional organizational affiliation or minority gender status—the greater the decrease in citations following the talk. However, scientists designated as exemplary through early career awards and editorial roles subsequently receive more citations than would be expected. In examining the role of collective identity in peer evaluation, we provide an alternate account of identity-based barriers to audience diversification and outline novel conditions whereby diversifiers receive positive peer support.

Keywords: social valuation, identity, audiences, prototypicality, exemplarity, science