Networks of digital humanities scholars: The informational and social uses and gratifications of Twitter

TL;DR

This study explores how digital humanities scholars use Twitter for both informational and social purposes, revealing complex, overlapping networks that reflect their professional and personal connections.

Contribution

It provides a nuanced analysis of scholars' Twitter use, emphasizing the multifaceted nature of invisible colleges and the importance of mixed methods in big data research.

Findings

Twitter functions as an informational and social tool for scholars.

Follow relationships reflect shared interests and social ties.

The invisible college on Twitter is complex and multifaceted.

Abstract

Big data research is currently split on whether and to what extent Twitter can be characterised as an informational or social network. We contribute to this line of inquiry through an investigation of digital humanities scholars' uses and gratifications of Twitter. We conducted a thematic analysis of 25 semistructured interview transcripts to learn about these scholars' professional use of Twitter. Our findings show that Twitter is considered a critical tool for informal communication within DH invisible colleges, functioning at varying levels as both an informational network (learning to 'Twitter' and maintaining awareness) and a social network (imagining audiences and engaging other digital humanists). We find that Twitter follow relationships reflect common academic interests and are closely tied to scholars' preexisting social ties and conference or event co-attendance. The concept of the invisible college continues to be relevant but requires revisiting. The invisible college formed on Twitter is messy, consisting of overlapping social contexts (professional, personal, and public), scholars with different habits of engagement, and both formal and informal ties. Our research illustrates the value of using multiple methods to explore the complex questions arising from big data studies and points toward future research that could implement big data techniques on a small scale, focusing on sub-topics or emerging fields, to expose the nature of scholars' invisible colleges made visible on Twitter.