Are there stars in Bluesky after the return of Donald Trump to the White House?

TL;DR

This study investigates the shift from X to Bluesky in scientific communication, analyzing social metrics and platform engagement changes across disciplines and time periods following political events.

Contribution

It provides new insights into Bluesky's adoption in scientific communities and its impact on altmetrics, highlighting platform engagement variations post-2024 US elections.

Findings

Bluesky activity increased notably in November 2024 for multidisciplinary journals.

In LIS, Bluesky adoption varies between European and US journals.

Bluesky engagement surpassed X in some LIS journals after US elections.

Abstract

This study examines the shift in the scientific community from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky, its impact on scientific communication, and consequently on social metrics (altmetrics). We analysed 14,497 publications from multidisciplinary and Library and Information Science (LIS) journals between January 2024 and March 2025. The results reveal a notable increase in Bluesky activity for multidisciplinary journals in November 2024, likely influenced by political and platform changes, with mentions multiplying for journals like Nature and Science. In LIS, the adoption of Bluesky is different and shows marked variation between European and United States journals. Although Bluesky remains a minority platform compared to X over the whole period, when focusing on user engagement after the United States elections, we see a much more even distribution between the two platforms. In two LIS journals, Bluesky even surpasses X, while in most others, the difference in user engagement was no longer as pronounced, marking a significant change from previous patterns in altmetrics.