in in Astronomy and Astrophysics Ashraf Maleki Master Graduate at - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Connectedness and Consistency of f Twit itter Users Posting Scholarly Art rticles in in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Ashraf Maleki

Master Graduate at Scientometrics University of Tehran (Iran)

@ashrafmaleki

malekiashraf68@gmail.com

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

• f 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
• ther’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 The

Astrophysical 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 Following Followers

How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network?

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Following

29,650 Articles with tweets in field of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Tweet Tweet

Following

Tweet Tweet

Tweeting the same article Tweeting the same field

5,283 Users User/Follower Friend/Following 31,051 unique Twitter users

How much users tweeting the articles are in each

• ther’s network?

Tweeting articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Following

Articles in the field

• f Astronomy

and Astrophysics

Tweet Tweet User Friend

80% of Twitter users

followed 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 network 58% 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 Maleki

Master Graduate at Scientometrics University of Tehran (Iran)

@ashrafmaleki

malekiashraf68@gmail.com