Exploring Twitter for Scientific and Public Engagement with Scholarly Articles

Abstract

The “science-society connect” deals with “transferring the benefits of scientific work to meet existing and emerging societal needs”. In other words, it talks about taking the science to the society so that the society can benefit from scientific research and scientific temper can be inculcated in citizens. The “science-science connect” refers to “sharing of ideas and resources within the knowledge ecosystem”. Though traditionally, science communication happened using journals and conferences but with the penetration of social media, it has grown beyond these boundaries. Therefore, the use of social media for diffusion of scholarly communication into the society has drawn interest across the world. This work presents an exploratory analysis of effectiveness of Twitter as a medium for diffusion of scholarly communication beyond science-science networks.