Just as social media has become ubiquitous in academia, its established formats and dynamics have been brought into doubt. Björn Brembs argues that learned societies concerned with their core mission as societies should engage and lead developments on …
Category: Academic Social Media
Social media ennui – the end of academic social media?
Is social media in a period of change? David Beer considers whether trends towards repetition and uniformity are prefiguring a new standard for the way in which social media intersects with academic life. Might we be moving into a different period for …
Could Bluesky be the replacement for Academic Twitter?
Elon Musk’s unanticipated acquisition of Twitter (X), and the rapid alterations he has instituted have led many academics to look for alternative social media platforms. Mark Carrigan proposes Bluesky, a social media platform derived from Twitter…
The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media
In The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media, Emily Hund examines how digital creators seeking work after the 2008 financial crash spawned a multi-billion-dollar industry that has redefined culture, social media and advertisin…
Will Threads be the new academic Twitter?
With over a 100 million new users, the launch of Threads has a real potential to unseat Twitter as the default platform for academic social media. Taking stock of Threads, Andy Tattersall, examines the positives and negatives of the platform and sugges…
Beyond the doughnut – Five ways to use altmetrics for academic success
A decade on since their inception, Andy Tattersall considers how academics can make use of altmetrics in ways that go beyond counts and metrics. When the term altmetrics first appeared in September 2010, originating in a Tweet by ImpactStory co-founde…
Book Review: Social Media and Hate by Shakuntala Banaji and Ramnath Bhat
In Social Media and Hate, Shakuntala Banaji and Ramnath Bhat explore the problem of hate speech on social media platforms, offering case studies of India, Brazil, Myanmar and the UK. The book is a timely and insightful exploration of the intersection o…
Social media has changed – Will academics catch up?
Since its purchase by Elon Musk last year, Twitter has undergone a series of rapid changes, largely with an eye to making the platform profitable. Considering these developments and those on other platforms, Mark Carrigan, suggests that just as academi…
Observer, Connector, Promoter, Influencer – How to leverage social media to be an open academic
To be an open researcher is more than simply openly sharing research papers. Marcel Bogers and Ian McCarthy draw on their research on open practices in business research to outline four ways of leveraging social media to be more ‘open’ as a researcher,…
Fun(ny) facts: Humour as a research communication strategy
If you have read any research produced by universities, civil society organisations or think tanks, you will most likely have struggled to find any good jokes. However, throughout history, humour has played an important role in critiquing society and r…