Scholars' temporal participation on, temporary disengagement from, and return to Twitter

Date
2018Author
Veletsianos, George
Kimmons, Royce
Belikov, Olga
Johnson, Nicole
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Even though the extant literature investigates how and why academics use social media, much less is known about academics’ temporal patterns of social media use. This mixed methods study provides a first-of-its-kind investigation into temporal social media use. In particular, we study how academics’ use of Twitter varies over time and examine the reasons why academics temporarily disengage and return to the social media platform. We employ data mining methods to identify a sample of academics on Twitter (n = 3,996) and retrieve the tweets they posted (n = 9,025,127). We analyze quantitative data using descriptive and inferential statistics, and qualitative data using the constant comparative approach. Results show that Twitter use is predominantly connected to traditional work hours and is well-integrated into academics’ professional endeavors, suggesting that professional use of Twitter has become “ordinary.” Though scholars rarely announce their departure from or return to Twitter, approximately half of this study’s participants took some kind of a break from Twitter. Although users returned to Twitter for both professional and personal reasons, conferences and workshops were found to be significant events stimulating the return of academic users.
Description
This is an open peer-reviewed article available at https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i11.8346.URI
https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i11.8346https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/8346/7606
http://hdl.handle.net/10613/8572
http://dx.doi.org/10.25316/IR-3096
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Women scholars’ experiences with online harassment and abuse: Self-protection, resistance, acceptance, and self-blame
Veletsianos, George; Houlden, Shandell; Hodson, Jaigris; Gosse, Chandell (New Media & Society, 2018)Although scholars increasingly use online platforms for public, digital, and networked scholarship, the research examining their experiences of harassment and abuse online is scant. In this study, we interviewed 14 women ... -
I get by with a little help from my friends: The ecological model and support for women scholars experiencing online harassment
Hodson, Jaigris; Gosse, Chandell; Veletsianos, George; Houlden, Shandell (First Monday, 2018)This article contributes to understanding the phenomenon of online abuse and harassment toward women scholars. We draw on data collected from 14 interviews with women scholars from the United States, Canada, and the United ... -
Education scholars’ evolving uses of Twitter as a conference backchannel and social commentary platform
Kimmons, Royce; Veletsianos, George (British Journal of Educational Technology, 2016)The scholarly community faces a lack of large-scale research examining how students and professors use social media in authentic contexts and how such use changes over time. This study uses data mining methods to better ...