Understanding the Twitter Usage of Science Citation Index (SCI) Journals

TL;DR

This study analyzes Twitter interaction patterns of SCI journals, revealing their communication networks, source mentions, and differences based on impact factors and disciplines, highlighting social media engagement in scientific communication.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of Twitter usage by SCI journals, uncovering interaction patterns, influential hubs, and disciplinary differences in social media engagement.

Findings

SCI journals interact more with each other than with other indices.

Nature journals are central in the communication network.

High-impact journals serve as prominent hubs.

Abstract

This paper investigates the Twitter interaction patterns of journals from the Science Citation Index (SCI) of Master Journal List (MJL). A total of 953,253 tweets extracted from 857 journal accounts, were analyzed in this study. Findings indicate that SCI journals interacted more with each other but much less with journals from other citation indices. The network structure of the communication graph resembled a tight crowd network, with Nature journals playing a major part. Information sources such as news portals and scientific organizations were mentioned more in tweets, than academic journal Twitter accounts. Journals with high journal impact factors (JIFs) were found to be prominent hubs in the communication graph. Differences were found between the Twitter usage of SCI journals with Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) journals.