Connectedness and Consistency of Twitter Users Posting Scholarly Articles
in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Ashraf MalekiMaster Graduate at Scientometrics
University of Tehran (Iran)
@ashrafmaleki
Background• Networking functionality of Twitter between
users sometimes outweigh its informational use.
• There is evidence that majority of users with tweets to articles believe Twitter is an important platform in creating opportunity of account following and developing network of connections.
References• Mohammadi, E., M. Thelwall, M. Kwasny, & K. Holmes (2018). Academic information on Twitter:
A user survey. PLOS ONE, 13(5): e0197265. • Rogers, R. (2014). Debanalising Twitter. The Transformation of an Object of Study. In K. Weller, A.
Bruns, J. Burgess, M. Mahrt, & C. Puschmann (Eds.), Twitter and Society. New York: Peter Lang.
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Research Questions
1. How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network?
2. How consistently did users follow the practice of tweeting field’s articles?
Dataset & Method: Sample
• All 7,323 articles with tweets of TheAstrophysical Journal in 2011 to 2015
• 5,283 unique Twitter users was searched in Twitter.com using API for only following users or friends’ data, finding 5,017,615 friendships.
• API restriction! Friends data were not completely downloadable for 160 accounts (3%) with over 5000 friends.
• 659 accounts (12%) had not networked with any friends.
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No Following!
Limitations
User
FollowingFollowers
How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network?
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Follo
win
g
29,650 Articleswith tweets infield ofAstronomyand Astrophysics
Tweet
Tweet
Follo
win
g
Tweet
Tweet
Tweeting the same articleTweeting the same field
5,283
UsersUser/Follower
Friend/Following
31,051 uniqueTwitter users
How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network?
Tweeting articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics
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Follo
win
g
Articles inthe fieldof AstronomyandAstrophysics
Tweet
Tweet
User
Friend
80% of Twitter usersfollowed users tweeting articles in the same field
Followers with the highest number of friends with tweets in field were academic researchers and publishers.Popular friends were space organizations and projects and news feeds. @NASA @NASAKepler @SPACEdotcom
Friendship Patterns between Users Present In Tweeting the Same Article
Unique Twitter Users
65% in a friendship network58% Followers -> 35% Followings
28% in Mutual Friendship
With at least one Follower-Following (41%)
Mutual Friendship (18%)
Articles
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How consistently users follow the practice of tweeting field’s articles?
80%11%4%
1.8%1.2%0.8%0.6%
Conclusions
• Most Twitter users only have a limited contribution in Astronomy and Astrophysics research diffusion.
• Friendship is a significant factor in the involvement of majority of users in the broader diffusion of minority of articles.
• Most Users either favour retweeting articles from friends or non-friends. These two distinct behaviour of users can be interesting research topic for further speculation.
• Other research fields might show different friendship impact due to disciplinary differences in Twitter uptake.
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Acknowledgement
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goes to Altmetric.com and Twitter.com for supporting access to data.
Questions?
Ashraf MalekiMaster Graduate at Scientometrics
University of Tehran (Iran)
@ashrafmaleki