Using social media to promote academic research: Identifying the benefits of twitter for sharing academic work

Abstract

To disseminate research, scholars once relied on university media services or journal press releases, but today any academic can turn to Twitter to share their published work with a broader audience. The possibility that scholars can push their research out, rather than hope that it is pulled in, holds the potential for scholars to draw wide attention to their research. In this manuscript, we examine whether there are systematic differences in the types of scholars who most benefit from this push model. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which there are gender differences in the dissemination of research via Twitter. We carry out our analyses by tracking tweet patterns for articles published in six journals across two fields (political science and communication), and we pair this Twitter data with demographic and educational data about the authors of the published articles, as well as article citation rates. We find considerable evidence that, overall, article citations are positively correlated with tweets about the article, and we find little evidence to suggest that author gender affects the transmission of research in this new media. Social media provide academics with one of the most direct routes for sharing their work. To disseminate research, scholars once relied on university media services or journal press releases, but today any academic can turn to Twitter to share their published findings with a broader audience that stretches well beyond their friends, family, or even academic community. In this manuscript, we provide a broad empirical investigation of whether Twitter offers any advantage to academics who share their work via social media. We then turn to the more specific question of whether Twitter offers an equitable benefit to all academics who participate, or if instead it simply exacerbates inequalities in research dissemination that exist "offline." In considering these inequalities, we focus on the specific case of gender. Relying on social media, researchers can reach practitioners, journalists, and the public at large [1,2,3,4]. Twitter seems to offer tremendous benefits [5], especially given increasing

When Pandemics Call: Community-Based Research Considerations for HIV Scholars

“…Historically, research has used a "pull" model, where interested individuals sought out information in periodicals; however, researchers are beginning to use a "push" strategy where research is disseminated to interested parties through venues such as social media [16,17]. The rapid pace of developing information may be complicated for community partners to research and verify while simultaneously adjusting services for clients.…”

Could early tweet counts predict later citation counts? A gender study in Life Sciences and Biomedicine (2014–2016)

“…Given these gender differences in the number of women in senior positions and the number of citations, some studies have also sought to examine whether the web might provide a democratizing space for female academics [ 14 , 15 ]. Many social media sites have provided new opportunities for both female and male scholars to disseminate and promote their research results within and beyond scientific community [ 15 , 16 ]. Twitter is one of these social media platforms which is fundamentally reshaping the way biomedical scientists and academic physicians can discover, discuss and share research across disciplinary boundaries, as well as to the public.…”

“…Twitter is one of these social media platforms which is fundamentally reshaping the way biomedical scientists and academic physicians can discover, discuss and share research across disciplinary boundaries, as well as to the public. Twitter allows conversations about new papers to happen immediately and publicly [ 15 , 17 ]. It also provides a possibility for authors to push their research out via twitter, rather than hope that it is pulled in by readers.…”

“…It also provides a possibility for authors to push their research out via twitter, rather than hope that it is pulled in by readers. Thus, this possibility provides the potential for scholars to draw wide attention to their research [ 15 ]. Twitter might also reduce the influence of hierarchies based on seniority.…”

“…This is because on Twitter, people who do not have tenure, or have a limited number of publications or are early in their career can demonstrate their expertise [ 17 ]. Shifting to the push method on social media might also potentially reduce gendered gatekeeping in the dissemination of research [ 15 ]. For example, some studies on social media and gender have found that females had a higher visibility in terms of Web citations [ 18 ], average Mendeley readers [ 19 , 20 ], profile views on Academia.Edu in certain disciplines [ 21 ], or event counts from Twitter [ 14 , 20 ], blogs, and news [ 14 ].…”