University of Wisconsin Scientists Find Social Media Boosts Research Recognition
From the The Badger-Herald:
Researchers at University of Wisconsin have found a correlation between the use of social media to publicize a scientist’s work and the amount of recognition they will receive.
However, not all scientists agree that it is actually a good thing to use social media as an outlet to spread their findings and reach a larger audience, Dietram Scheufele, professor of life sciences communication, said.
“I think in many ways the topic is so popular because there has been a long debate in the sciences to which degree [scientists] should engage with the public or use some of these new tools in the first place,” Scheufele said.
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“With a single tweet, with a single well-placed social media message, I can reach way more people,” Scheufele said. “It has the ability to tie together learning and research in ways we’ve never seen before.”
Read the Complete Article
See Also: Professor Scheufele’s Website
Note: The “What’s New” section of the website has direct links to several papers that might be of interest.
UPDATE: The full text of the research paper discussed in the article is available online. Thanks to SAGE for making it available to us.
Title: Building Buzz: (Scientists) Communicating Science in New Media Environments
A PDF version of the article is also available.
Filed under: Journal Articles, News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.