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Category: social media

On “Of, By, and For the Internet: New Media Studies and Public Scholarship,” by Aimée Morrison

On “Of, By, and For the Internet: New Media Studies and Public Scholarship,” by Aimée Morrison

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From her own experiences with social media, Morrison explores the possibilities for viral academic speech to become what she terms “public / scholarship” (56). For Morrison, a mode of engagement with new media that weighed the public and scholarly elements more evenly would lead to more transformative, and less disruptive, work. Morrison takes time to examine and acknowledge her own privilege as a public scholar, as well as the repercussions to her and others for doing academic work in the…

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On “Understanding How Twitter Is Used to Spread Scientific Messages,” by Julie Letierce et al.

On “Understanding How Twitter Is Used to Spread Scientific Messages,” by Julie Letierce et al.

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In “Understanding How Twitter Is Used to Spread Scientific Messages,” Julie Letierce, Alexandre Passant, John Breslin, and Stefan Decker aim to understand how Twitter is used for spreading academic knowledge, especially at conferences. To do so, they harvested and studied tweets from three different conferences, as well conducted interviews with colleagues who are active on social media. Although Letierce et al. state that “Twitter has this potential to help the erosion of boundaries between researchers and broader audiences” (1), their…

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On “‘Facebook for Academics’: The Convergence of Self-Branding and Social Media Logic on Academia.edu,” by Brooke Erin Duffy and Jefferson D. Pooley

On “‘Facebook for Academics’: The Convergence of Self-Branding and Social Media Logic on Academia.edu,” by Brooke Erin Duffy and Jefferson D. Pooley

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In “‘Facebook for Academics’: The Convergence of Self-Branding and Social Media Logic on Academia.edu,” Brooke Erin Duffy and Jefferson D. Pooley examine the popular academic paper sharing site, academia.edu. They argue that academia.edu reflects the self-branding impetus of contemporary scholars, but also feeds the conception that such self-branding is necessary. They frame academia.edu as a classic Silicon Valley start-up, and reveal the significant venture capital that has funded the company since 2008 (over 12.6 million since inception [4]). Duffy and…

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On Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars, by George Veletsianos

On Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars, by George Veletsianos

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In Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars, George Veletsianos aims to nuance the conversation around academics’ participation on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Contrary to the common focus, Veletsianos  urges his readers to consider the role of social media for academics as individuals. By contrast, social media is usually discussed in relation to increasing citation count or status as a public intellectual (106, 107). “To understand scholars lives,” he writes, “we need to examine more than just their…

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