Mike S. Schäfer – InfoDoc MicroVeille

Authors : Sophia C. Volk , Mike S. Schäfer

Evaluations are becoming more important in science communication. But both science communication practitioners and researchers are not sufficiently utilizing the potential of evaluations yet. In this essay, we first define four requirements for rigorous evaluations of science communication activities and projects.

To substantiate our argument, we take stock of the scientific literature, uncover deficiencies in current evaluation practices and identify potential causes. We conclude with laying out how different actors in the field — including science communication practitioners, professional associations, scientific institutions and funding bodies as well as researchers — can contribute to advancing evaluation practices in science communication as well as research on it.

URL : Evaluations in science communication. Current state and future directions

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.23060401

Authors : Chung-hong Chan, Jing Zeng, Mike S. Schäfer

Twitter has become an important promotional tool for scholarly work, but individual academic publications have varied degrees of visibility on the platform. We explain this variation through the concept of Twitter-worthiness: factors making certain academic publications more likely to be visible on Twitter.

Using publications from communication studies as our analytical case, we conduct statistical analyses of 32187 articles spanning 82 journals. Findings show that publications from G12 countries, covering social media topics and published open access tend to be mentioned more on Twitter.

Similar to prior studies, this study demonstrates that Twitter mentions are associated with peer citations. Nevertheless, Twitter also has the potential to reinforce pre-existing disparities between communication research communities, especially between researchers from developed and less-developed regions. Open access, however, does not reinforce such disparities.

URL : Whose research benefits more from Twitter? On Twitter-worthiness of communication research and its role in reinforcing disparities of the field

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278840