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Highly tweeted science articles: who tweets them? An analysis of Twitter user profile descriptions

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Abstract

In this study we examined who tweeted academic articles that had at least one Finnish author or co-author affiliation and that had high altmetric counts on Twitter. In this investigation of national level altmetrics we chose the most tweeted scientific articles from four broad areas of science (Agricultural, Engineering and Technological Sciences; Medical and Health Sciences; Natural Sciences; Social Sciences and Humanities). By utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, we studied the data using research techniques such as keyword categorization, co-word analysis and content analysis of user profile descriptions. Our results show that contrary to a random sample of Twitter users, users who tweet academic articles describe themselves more factually and by emphasizing their occupational expertise rather than personal interests. The more field-specific the articles were, the more research-related descriptions dominated in Twitter profile descriptions. We also found that scientific articles were tweeted to promote ideological views especially in instances where the article represented a topic that divides general opinion.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank MSc. Jonne Lehtimäki for insightful comments on the article. This research was financed by The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture’s Open Science and Research Initiative 2014–2017 (funding number: OKM/33/524/2015).

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  1. Research Unit for the Sociology of Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Julia Vainio & Kim Holmberg

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  1. Julia Vainio
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  2. Kim Holmberg
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Correspondence to Julia Vainio.

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Vainio, J., Holmberg, K. Highly tweeted science articles: who tweets them? An analysis of Twitter user profile descriptions. Scientometrics 112, 345–366 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2368-0

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