Scientific communication in the 21st century: Tweeting, Facebook Likes, and everything in-between

Science has always been about two fundamental goals: understanding our natural surroundings and using the acquired understanding to improve the quality of life of everyone in society. Given this relationship, everyone in society is a key stakeholder of all scientific endeavors. However, the dissemination of key research findings has arguably been restricted to exclusive groups of scientists with few attempts at educating and engaging the general society on research outcomes. True public engagement requires one to think beyond the traditional paradigms of research publication. While the traditional journal article serves the purpose of taking science forward one step at a time, there is an increasing need for new wider research dissemination platforms and new research content formats that are easy to digest and engage stakeholders beyond the academic and scientific community. Science communication and engagement are no longer restricted to a specific community but are instead now expected to target the public to engage funders, policy makers, and society at large. This changing landscape is affecting the way publishers and authors are thinking about scientific engagement. It is resulting in the adoption of newer platforms for research dissemination, developing newer research content formats, and supplementing traditional research impact measurement metrics with newer ones.