The role of social networks in communication in the scientific research community

Abstract

Social networks have grown rapidly in recent years, enabling the application of social web technologies to the scientific process and creating platforms that enhance communication between researchers. The aim of this research is to go one step further and investigate whether the use of more general social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, is also becoming more widespread for scientific research, thus contributing to the visibility of scientists and their collaborative networks. Social media analysis is carried out using the Brandwatch platform to assess the use of generalist social networks in research and compared with the use of scientific social networks through an online survey of university professors. The resulting conclusions show that scientific mentions in networks are rare and that, despite the importance of researchers having a profile in a social network, which allows them to give greater visibility to their results and receive feedback from their colleagues, many of them are still unaware of its usefulness.