PONE-D-19-29292

Controlling for optimal openness in the male-dominated collaborative networks of the global film industry

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr Verhoeven,

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In this manuscript, the authors study gender inequalities in the film industry. In order to understand its causes and come up with possible interventions, the authors argue to consider the network of relationships between individuals (producers, etc.). Looking at data from 3 datasets and using numerical simulations, the authors identify possible mechanisms to increase openness in networks.

I am convinced by the authors' argument that looking at the interaction networks of the producers will yield a better understanding of the possible causes of gender inequality. Therefore, I believe the current manuscript constitutes a genuine contribution and it is well written. However, before recommending its publication I would like the authors to address/clarify the following points:

1. In the abstract, the authors state that "we suggest that a study of network relationships offers innovative recommendations for understanding and redressing inequality in these industries.". I find a chance that this statement might be misleading with respect to what is done in the paper. It could be interpreted that the current paper is the first one to attempt a network approach; however, later (line 177) the authors write that "Lutter, who argues that the critical index of equity outcomes is network openness" showing that others have suggested similar things before. Furthermore, the following statement "Inequality is exacerbated when industry networks are most closed" suggests that it is a finding of the current paper; as I understand it is also a known result from Lutter. Clarifying the new contributions from the current manuscript, particularly in the abstract, would sharpen the manuscript and makes it easier for the reader to judge the importance of the paper.

2. I am slightly skeptical towards the formalization of Lutter's network openness in terms of small world (clustering coefficient, average shortest path), modularity, and assortativity. While these measures are common in studies of networks (and many networks are small-world-like and modular and assortative) we lack a proof of the external validity of these measures in the same way as demonstrated by Lutter. I am aware that these would probably require additional experiments which are beyond the scope of the current study. Thus, mentioning such limitations would make it easier to identify the open problems.

3. How is the openness of the networks measured? In the abstract, it is stated that "the most critical factor for improving network openness is ...". From the paper, I understood that (line 210) "we define an open network as one that follows a small-world model and at the same time aims at reducing modularity and node-degree assortativity." The interventions decrease the latter two. However, they also decrease the clustering coefficient, which makes it less small-world and thus less open. In view of the lack of a (more) clear definition of network openness, I find the conclusion not quantitatively supported by the analysis. The title ("optimal openness") is misleading as the relation between the intervention and openness is qualitative.

4. I was hoping to find more information about the collection of the data (page 10), for example what sources/films/genres were included or excluded and for what reasons. This would be interesting to assess whether the differences in the network characteristics (Table 2) could be due to the choices made in the data collection/pre-processing. Regarding the sharing of the data: I understand that the underlying data is sensitive and that it cannot be shared. However, in order to reproduce the analysis (and build upon it), would it be possible to publish partial or anonymized datasets, for example simply the network and the gender of the node (without any further meta information)?

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Reviewer #1: No

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Controlling for openness in the male-dominated collaborative networks of the global film industry

PONE-D-19-29292R1

Dear Dr. Verhoeven,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

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With kind regards,

Luís A. Nunes Amaral, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I want to thank the authors for their detailed and thorough response. The changes in the revised manuscript address all the main points I had raised in my previous comments leading to a subtantial improvement of the paper. Specifically, the authors i) changed the abstract to clarify the contributions of the paper, ii) extended a discussion around the limitations of the external validity of the network measures, iii) clarified the trade-off in openness between high clustering-coefficent (small world) and small modularity; in particular by changing the title, and iv) added information about the data collection and shared the data in figshare. Therefore, I now recommend publication of the papaer in Plos One.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Martin Gerlach