Open AccessHow and why scholars cite on Twitter
Author(s) -
Priem Jason,
Costello Kaitlin Light
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
proceedings of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8390
pISSN - 0044-7870
DOI - 10.1002/meet.14504701201
Subject(s) - microblogging , citation , conversation , social media , scholarly communication , sample (material) , altmetrics , scientometrics , service (business) , sociology , world wide web , media studies , computer science , political science , communication , business , publishing , marketing , law , chemistry , chromatography
Scholars are increasingly using the microblogging service Twitter as a communication platform. Since citing is a central practice of scholarly communication, we investigated whether and how scholars cite on Twitter. We conducted interviews and harvested 46,515 tweets from a sample of 28 scholars and found that they do cite on Twitter, though often indirectly. Twitter citations are part of a fast‐moving conversation that participants believe reflects scholarly impact. Twitter citation metrics could augment traditional citation analysis, supporting a “scientometrics 2.0.”