Twitter can be written off as a distinctly unserious medium, a place for fads, bullying and the latest cat videos. However, as Steve Fuller discusses the unique format of a tweet can also be a space for concision, constructive ambiguity as well as a te…
Category: Twitter
Leave, Adapt, Resist – Time to rethink Academic Twitter?
As Twitter moves to become a private company owned by the billionaire Elon Musk, Mark Carrigan, reflects on the increasing importance academic social media and academic twitter has secured in universities for building academic communities and for publi…
Want to make your research credible online? Image matters
Whether it is via videos, blogs, social media, or mainstream news outlets, research findings are communicated in many formats and media other than the traditional research article. However, especially when they are divorced from standard markers of aca…
Can Twitter data help in spotting problems early with publications? What retracted COVID-19 papers can teach us about science in the public sphere
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought science into mainstream public and political debates in novel ways, notably through the widespread use of social media to share and discuss new findings. In this post, Robin Haunschild and Lutz Bornmann discuss their r…
Using Twitter as a data source an overview of social media research tools (2021)
In this edition of Wasim Ahmed’s long-running series on using Twitter data as a research tool, Wasim considers the significance of the newly introduced Twitter ‘academic research product track’ and the different ways in which Twitter …
Socially distanced networks – 5 Reasons PhD students should engage with social media now
Peer support, finding a place within academia, staying up to date with the latest research, communicating research to wider audiences and navigating life after PhD. Ema Talam and Jon Fairburn outline five ways in which social media, and in particular Twitter, can make all the difference to PhD research at a time when regular academic … Continued
In 2021 let’s do institutional academic social media better.
Chances are you dutifully follow a number of poorly managed institutional academic social media accounts, producing infrequent, unengaging and perhaps occasionally important content. In this post, Andy Tattersall, provides advice on how to approach institutional academic social media in a more productive way and makes the case for its vital role in keeping academia connected … Continued
“Why I’ve deleted my Twitter account #exhaustionrebellion” ~ by Mark Carrigan
After close to a decade of using twitter as an academic, Mark Carrigan reflects on why he has decided to leave the platform. Highlighting, the benefits of twitter, but also the increasingly institutionalised nature of academic social media and the way in which social media work has become a required, but unrecognised feature of academic labour, he suggests that twitter has […]
Do social media companies undervalue the expertise of online communities?
Type vaccines into twitter and under a new initiative you will be prompted towards information supplied by expert institutions such as the NHS or US Department of Health and Human Services. However, by directing audiences to these sources, do social media companies overlook the important role played by online communities of lay experts? In this post Stefania Vicari explores how […]
Using Twitter as a data source: an overview of social media research tools (2019)
Twitter and other social media platforms represent a large and largely untapped resource for social data and evidence. In this post, Wasim Ahmed updates his recurring series on the Impact Blog, to bring you the latest developments in digital methods and methodologies for researching Twitter and other social media platforms. This post builds upon the 2015, and 2017 editions of […]