Expert communication on Twitter: Comparing economists’ and scientists’ social networks, topics and communicative styles

Abstract

Experts increasingly use social media to communicate with the wider public, prompted by the need to demonstrate impact and public engagement. While previous research on the use of social media by experts focused on single topics and performed sentiment analysis, we propose to extend the scope by investigating experts’ networks, topics and communicative styles. We perform social and semantic network as well language analysis of top tweeting scientists and economists. We find that economists tweet less, mention fewer people and have fewer Twitter conversations with members of the public than scientists. Scientists use a more informal and involved style and engage wider audiences through multimedia contents, while economists use more jargon, and tend to favour traditional written media. The results point to differences in experts’ communicative practices online, and we propose that disciplinary ways of ‘talking’ may pose obstacles to an effective public communication of expert knowledge.

Does AI-Assisted Fact-Checking Disproportionately Benefit Majority Groups Online?

“…We investigate a world in which there exists a majority community, a minority community, and a small expert community (Giusta, Jaworska, and Greetham, 2021;Murthy, Gross, and Pensavalle, 2015). We further assume that |Ω| = 2, with the majority community being more impacted by ω 0 and the minority community being more impacted by ω 1 .…”

“You Can Do Better Than That!”: Tweeting Scientists Addressing Politics on Climate Change and Covid-19

“…The platform enables scientists to distribute, consume, and discuss scientific issues in a new way (Büchi, 2017). While Twitter primarily serves as a platform for many researchers to share their research findings and connect with their scientific network (Collins et al, 2016;Costas et al, 2020), Twitter's architecture enables scientists to engage in broader public discussions (Brossard & Scheufele, 2022;Della Giusta et al, 2021). Hence, the rise of social media platforms such as Twitter has changed how scientists communicate with different non-scientific actors (Roedema et al, 2021) since social media facilitate exchanges between science and politics, and media and the public (Walter et al, 2019).…”

“…Hence, the rise of social media platforms such as Twitter has changed how scientists communicate with different non-scientific actors (Roedema et al, 2021) since social media facilitate exchanges between science and politics, and media and the public (Walter et al, 2019). While in the past, scientists had to turn to the public and political actors via traditional mass media (Weingart, 2001), nowadays, they can directly address politics using their own accounts on social media platforms (Della Giusta et al, 2021).…”

“…For instance, during the pandemic, the popularity of virologists grew very quickly, which was also reflected in their increasing number of Twitter followers (Utz et al, 2022). In general, scientists progressively use their own social media channels to communicate directly with the public (Della Giusta et al, 2021). On social media, different online public arenas intermingle (Lörcher & Taddicken, 2017), offering scientists the opportunity to communicate beyond the scientific community and directly address politics.…”

“…When scientists engage in politicised controversies, their communication can serve to influence policy (Pielke, 2004;Post & Ramirez, 2018). Moreover, comparative studies in the context of scientists as public communicators are limited to comparisons between scientists and actors from other fields, such as economics (Della Giusta et al, 2021). However, it is important to better understand how visi-ble scientists from different research areas communicate directly with the public, particularly, how they address politics.…”