Connectedness and Consistency of Twitter Users Posting Scholarly Articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics Ashraf Maleki Master Graduate at Scientometrics University of Tehran (Iran) @ashrafmaleki malekiashraf68@gmail.com Hello people at poster madness session. Within 5 minutes I’ll be sharing with you some of the interesting findings of my research on the connectedness and consistency of Twitter Users Posting Scholarly Articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Background Networking functionality of Twitter between users sometimes outweigh its informational use. There is evidence that majority of users with tweets to articles believe Twitter is an important platform in creating opportunity of account following and developing network of connections. References Mohammadi, E., M. Thelwall, M. Kwasny, & K. Holmes (2018). Academic information on Twitter: A user survey. PLOS ONE, 13(5): e0197265. Rogers, R. (2014). Debanalising Twitter. The Transformation of an Object of Study. In K. Weller, A. Bruns, J. Burgess, M. Mahrt, & C. Puschmann (Eds.), Twitter and Society. New York: Peter Lang. Do you see Twitter to be an informative social media or a networking one? In the context of tweeting academic articles, a survey have found that the majority of users see Twitter as a great tool for developing network of connections, however, it has an informational use for them as well. In this research I examine whether and how accounts following in Twitter has an impact on driving tweets to articles.

Research Questions How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network? How consistently did users follow the practice of tweeting field’s articles? So the main question is how much users tweeting articles appear in each other’s network. another question is that how long users keep tweeting articles in astronomy and astrophysics. These will show the commitment of users to tweeting articles and influence of friends on it.

Dataset & Method: Sample Followers Following All 7,323 articles with tweets of The Astrophysical Journal in 2011 to 2015 5,283 unique Twitter users was searched in Twitter.com using API for only following users or friends’ data, finding 5,017,615 friendships. API restriction! Friends data were not completely downloadable for 160 accounts (3%) with over 5000 friends. 659 accounts (12%) had not networked with any friends. User Limitations To speculate extent of connection between these Twitter users, a sample user were prepared from all tweeted articles between 2011 and 2015 in the Astrophysical Journal which were posted by 5,283 users. All these users were searched in Twitter using API only for Friends or Following users, because users tend to be influenced by their friend rather than followers. For the people who are concerned about the problems associated with following users’ data, I shall mention that I had faced two limitations. One was an API restriction which was imposed by Twitter itself as it didn’t allow downloading all connected followings when users had above 5000 friends. Another issue was that 12% of users didn’t have any friends, this could be seen due to deletion or suspention of an account or not choosing to network with any friend. No Following!

How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network? 5,283 Users Tweet User/Follower 29,650 Articles with tweets in field of Astronomy and Astrophysics Tweet Following Following Tweet Tweet Friend/Following 31,051 unique Twitter users So, in answer to the first question. Let’s see it in 2 ways. First, the potential friendship between users in the sample was checked against all users with a background of tweeting any articles in astronomy and astrophysics across the over 5 million Friendships found. But in the second method, only users co-tweeting the same articles were investigated for whether they were friends or not. Tweeting the same field Tweeting the same article

followed users tweeting articles in the same field How much users tweeting the articles are in each other’s network? Tweeting articles in Astronomy and Astrophysics User Tweet Articles in the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics Following 80% of Twitter users followed users tweeting articles in the same field With regards to the first method, there can be seen that majority of users in the sample or 8 in 10 were following someone who had at least one tweet to Astronomy research. Users with the highest number of this type of friends were academic researchers and publishers. However, Popular friends were space organizations such as NASA and projects like NASAKepler and news feeds like SPACEdotcom Tweet Friend Followers with the highest number of friends with tweets in field were academic researchers and publishers. Popular friends were space organizations and projects and news feeds. @NASA @NASAKepler @SPACEdotcom

Friendship Patterns between Users Present In Tweeting the Same Article Articles Unique Twitter Users Let’s take a brief look at the possibility of viewing a connection pattern between users when tweeting the same article. Majority of articles were apparently tweeted by users without any friendship connection, as only 41% of articles was seen with at least two users in follower-following pattern. And only 18% with at least one pair of users in mutual friendship pattern. In either way 65% of unique users overall were involved in a form of friendship network in which 58% were followers, and just over on-third of users were their friends. 28% of these users were in mutual friendship. With at least one Follower-Following (41%) Mutual Friendship (18%) 65% in a friendship network 58% Followers -> 35% Followings 28% in Mutual Friendship

How consistently users follow the practice of tweeting field’s articles? 80% 11% 4% 1.8% 1.2% 0.8% 0.6% In this line graph, the unique number of users contributing to tweeting articles across years can be seen. 80% of users had only tweeted articles published in one year and they never appeared again. The number of these user is substantially increasing as there are more of them in more recent years. in a sense, This might suggest that Twitter is increasingly more successful in delivering scientific research news to more people, but most people do not seem to show a long term interest in a similar Tweeting behaviour.

Conclusions Most Twitter users only have a limited contribution in Astronomy and Astrophysics research diffusion. Friendship is a significant factor in the involvement of majority of users in the broader diffusion of minority of articles. Most Users either favour retweeting articles from friends or non- friends. These two distinct behaviour of users can be interesting research topic for further speculation. Other research fields might show different friendship impact due to disciplinary differences in Twitter uptake. In Conclusion, We learned that friendship was a significant factor in the involvement of majority of users in the broader diffusion of minority of articles, but most Twitter users only have a limited contribution. The obsession of the general public with astronomy and astrophysics suggest that this field can be an exception, because other research fields show different Twitter uptake and might show different friendship impact. Anyway I hope we return with further understanding to the question of friendship impact on Twitter uptake of research.

Acknowledgement goes to Altmetric.com and Twitter.com for supporting access to data and to Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group of University of Wolverhampton for their inspirational research and tools.

Questions? Ashraf Maleki @ashrafmaleki malekiashraf68@gmail.com Master Graduate at Scientometrics University of Tehran (Iran) @ashrafmaleki malekiashraf68@gmail.com