A classic topic in the study of innovation is the link between physical proximity and the exchange of ideas. But I’ve long been interested in a relatively new kind of serendipity engine, which isn’t constrained by physical proximity: Twitter. Lots of academics use twitter to talk about new discoveries and research. Today I want to look at whether twitter serves as a novel kind of knowledge diffusion platform.
This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Twitter and the Spread of Academic Knowledge, originally published on New Things Under the Sun.
Articles mentioned
de Winter, J.C.F. 2015. The relationship between tweets, citations, and article views for PLOS ONE articles. Scientometrics 102: 1773-1779. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1445-x
Jeong, J.W., M.J. Kim, H.-K. Oh, S. Jeong, M.H. Kim, J.R. Cho, D.-W. Kim and S.-B Kang. 2019. The impact of social media on citation rates in coloproctology. Colorectal Disease (10):1175-1182. https://doi.org/10.1111/codi.14719
Peoples, Brandon K., Stephen R. Midway, Dana Sackett, Abigail Lynch, and Patrick B. Cooney. 2016. Twitter predicts citation rates of ecological research. PLoS ONE 11(11): e0166570. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166570
Lamb, Clayton T., Sophie L. Gilbert, and Adam T. Ford. 2018. Tweet success? Scientific communication correlates with increased citations in Ecology and Conservation. PeerJ 6:e4564. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4564
Chan, Ho Fai, Ali Sina Önder, Sascha Schweitzer, and Benno Torgler. 2023. Twitter and citations. Economics Letters 231: 111270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111270
Finch, Tom, Nina O’Hanlon, and Steve P. Dudley. 2017. Tweeting birds: online mentions predict future citations in ornithology. Royal Society Open Science 4171371. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171371
Tonia, Thomy, Herman Van Oyen, Anke Berger, Christian Schindler, and Nino Künzli. 2020. If I tweet will you cite later? Follow-up on the effect of social media exposure on article downloads and citations. International Journal of Public Health 65: 1797–1802. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-020-01519-8
Branch, Trevor A., Isabelle M. Cȏté, Solomon R. David, Joshua A. Drew, Michelle LaRue, Melissa C. Márquez, E. C. M. Parsons, D. Rabaiotti, David Shiffman, David A. Steen, Alexander L. Wild. 2024. Controlled experiment finds no detectable citation bump from Twitter promotion. PLoS ONE 19(3): e0292201. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292201
Qiu, Jingyi, Yan Chen, Alain Cohn, and Alvin E. Roth. 2024. Social Media and Job Market Success: A Field Experiment on Twitter. SSRN Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4778120
A classic topic in the study of innovation is the link between physical proximity and the exchange of ideas. But I’ve long been interested in a relatively new kind of serendipity engine, which isn’t constrained by physical proximity: Twitter. Lots of academics use twitter to talk about new discoveries and research. Today I want to look at whether twitter serves as a novel kind of knowledge diffusion platform.
This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article Twitter and the Spread of Academic Knowledge, originally published on New Things Under the Sun.
Articles mentioned
de Winter, J.C.F. 2015. The relationship between tweets, citations, and article views for PLOS ONE articles. Scientometrics 102: 1773-1779. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1445-x
Jeong, J.W., M.J. Kim, H.-K. Oh, S. Jeong, M.H. Kim, J.R. Cho, D.-W. Kim and S.-B Kang. 2019. The impact of social media on citation rates in coloproctology. Colorectal Disease (10):1175-1182. https://doi.org/10.1111/codi.14719
Peoples, Brandon K., Stephen R. Midway, Dana Sackett, Abigail Lynch, and Patrick B. Cooney. 2016. Twitter predicts citation rates of ecological research. PLoS ONE 11(11): e0166570. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166570
Lamb, Clayton T., Sophie L. Gilbert, and Adam T. Ford. 2018. Tweet success? Scientific communication correlates with increased citations in Ecology and Conservation. PeerJ 6:e4564. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4564
Chan, Ho Fai, Ali Sina Önder, Sascha Schweitzer, and Benno Torgler. 2023. Twitter and citations. Economics Letters 231: 111270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111270
Finch, Tom, Nina O’Hanlon, and Steve P. Dudley. 2017. Tweeting birds: online mentions predict future citations in ornithology. Royal Society Open Science 4171371. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.171371
Tonia, Thomy, Herman Van Oyen, Anke Berger, Christian Schindler, and Nino Künzli. 2020. If I tweet will you cite later? Follow-up on the effect of social media exposure on article downloads and citations. International Journal of Public Health 65: 1797–1802. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-020-01519-8
Branch, Trevor A., Isabelle M. Cȏté, Solomon R. David, Joshua A. Drew, Michelle LaRue, Melissa C. Márquez, E. C. M. Parsons, D. Rabaiotti, David Shiffman, David A. Steen, Alexander L. Wild. 2024. Controlled experiment finds no detectable citation bump from Twitter promotion. PLoS ONE 19(3): e0292201. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292201
Qiu, Jingyi, Yan Chen, Alain Cohn, and Alvin E. Roth. 2024. Social Media and Job Market Success: A Field Experiment on Twitter. SSRN Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4778120