Introduction to the thematic Session on "Text Analytics in Gender Studies"

In recent years, in all fields of knowledge, a data-driven approach has spread according to the new scenario defined by the Big Data era. The so-called data deluge has started a season where an impressive amount of data constitutes a valuable research material for scholars. In this new context, the data-driven approach enables academics and scientists to examine and organize data with the goal of increasing knowledge in many research areas. The deluge of data today allows us to plan new analyses on a variety of unstructured data that are produced in major part by web navigation. This special issue collects four innovative papers dealing with different problems related to gender studies, but which have as their common thread the applications of text analytics techniques. These studies were discussed during the 14th International Conference on the Statistical Analysis of Textual Data, that was held in Rome (Italy), from 12 to 15 June 2018. This themed section is doubly focused – on both methodology and techniques used to address crucial topics at the core of the discussion on gender.