Science communication on Twitter: Measuring indicators of engagement and their links to user interaction in communication scholars’ Tweet content

Abstract

Scientists increasingly use Twitter for communication about science. The microblogging service has been heralded for its potential to foster public engagement with science; thus, measuring how engaging, that is dialogue-oriented, tweet content is, has become a relevant research object. Tweet content designed in an engaging, dialogue-oriented way is also supposed to link to user interaction (e.g. liking, retweeting). The present study analyzed content-related and functional indicators of engagement in scientists’ tweet content, applying content analysis to original tweets ( n = 2884) of 212 communication scholars. Findings show that communication scholars tweet mostly about scientific topics, with, however, low levels of engagement. User interaction, nevertheless, correlated with content-related and functional indicators of engagement. The findings are discussed in light of their implications for public engagement with science.

From Research to Retweets—Exploring the Role of Educational Twitter (X) Communities in Promoting Science Communication and Evidence-Based Teaching

“…This involves less direct sharing of published studies and places more emphasis on transfer formats for educational practice, such as workshops, conferences, or seminars hosted by researchers or universities. Similar connections between tweeting about scientific content and practical transfer formats are also prominent in other disciplines [7]. This illustrates the desire for both scientists and practitioners to engage in dialogue, resulting in extensive science communication.…”

“…Equally important is illustrating the tweet content through multimedia. There are correlations between engagement and content-related indicators and functional indicators like multimedia content [7]. Studies also indicate that research results from large institutions spread more rapidly on Twitter when they include links and multimedia content, such as a photo [41].…”

“…The term "Twitter" is used in the following, as during the data collection period, the social network was known by that name and the analysis is based on its functionalities at that time, rather than the limited functionality of X. Twitter has gained significant popularity as a platform for science communication. Much research exists on how scientists or universities utilize Twitter to disseminate their research findings [1][2][3][4] and engage with audiences [5][6][7]. Simultaneously, Twitter has also become a prevalent platform among teachers.…”

“…Additionally, practitioners benefit from this approach, as the shared research findings are encountered and disseminated by many non-academic professionals [2]. Existing research reveals that scholars in the Humanities mainly tweet about scientific content but exhibit limited tweet engagement [7]. Dialogical communication structures appear to be of significant importance in this regard, evident in university science communication.…”

Scientific clickbait: Examining media coverage and readability in genome-wide association research

“…To the best of our knowledge, no systematic review has been conducted on this topic since 2010, but we expect this percentage to have increased over the last decade, especially due to the increased availability of big data and computational methods to analyze online media [14]. For example, recent publications have explored the relationship between science communication and Reddit [15], Twitter [16], and YouTube [17], as well as the relationship between press releases and news articles [18]. However, despite a growing body of studies analyzing online media, the enormous amount of online content generated daily still poses a challenge to most researchers who are interested in analyzing media coverage of science [19].…”