Connectedness and Consistency of Twitter Users Posting Scholarly

Connectedness and Consistency of Twitter Users Posting Scholarly Articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics Ashraf Maleki Master Graduate at Scientometrics University of Tehran (Iran) @ashrafmalekiashraf 68@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 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): e 0197265. • 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. 2

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? 3

Dataset & Method: Sample Followers Limitations • 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. Following User No Following! 4

How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network ? 5, 283 Users Tweet Following Tweet 29, 650 Articles with tweets in field of Astronomy and Astrophysics User/Follower Tweet Friend/Following 31, 051 unique Twitter users Tweeting the same field Tweeting the same article 5

How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network ? Tweeting articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics User Tweet Following Friend Tweet Articles in the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics 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. @NASAKepler @SPACEdotcom 6

Friendship Patterns between Users Present In Tweeting the Same Article Unique Twitter Users Articles With at least one Follower-Following (41%) 65% in a friendship network 58% Followers -> 35% Followings Mutual Friendship (18%) 28% in Mutual Friendship

How consistently users follow the practice of tweeting field’s articles? 80% 11% 4% 1. 8% 1. 2% 0. 8% 0. 6% 8

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 nonfriends. 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. 9

Acknowledgement goes to Altmetric. com and Twitter. com for supporting access to data and to Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group of University of Wolverhampton for their inspirational research and tools. 10

Questions? Ashraf Maleki Master Graduate at Scientometrics University of Tehran (Iran) @ashrafmalekiashraf 68@gmail. com