Disciplinary differences in Twitter scholarly communication

Kim Holmberg () and Mike Thelwall ()
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Kim Holmberg: University of Wolverhampton
Mike Thelwall: University of Wolverhampton

Scientometrics, 2014, vol. 101, issue 2, No 8, 1027-1042

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates disciplinary differences in how researchers use the microblogging site Twitter. Tweets from selected researchers in ten disciplines (astrophysics, biochemistry, digital humanities, economics, history of science, cheminformatics, cognitive science, drug discovery, social network analysis, and sociology) were collected and analyzed both statistically and qualitatively. The researchers tended to share more links and retweet more than the average Twitter users in earlier research and there were clear disciplinary differences in how they used Twitter. Biochemists retweeted substantially more than researchers in the other disciplines. Researchers in digital humanities and cognitive science used Twitter more for conversations, while researchers in economics shared the most links. Finally, whilst researchers in biochemistry, astrophysics, cheminformatics and digital humanities seemed to use Twitter for scholarly communication, scientific use of Twitter in economics, sociology and history of science appeared to be marginal.

Keywords: Scholarly communication; Twitter; Disciplinary differences; Webometrics; Altmetrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1229-3

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