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Twitter Activity May Augment the Academic Impact of Otolaryngology Scholarship

by Linda Kossoff •

What is the impact of Twitter mentions on citation metrics of otolaryngology scholarship?

BOTTOM LINE

The shown association between Twitter activity and academic otolaryngology citations suggests that such activity may augment the academic impact of otolaryngology scholarship.

BACKGROUND: The scientific impact of publications has been traditionally measured through the number of referencing citations in peer-reviewed journals. Increased social media use within the academic community has expanded models of assessing article impact. There is no known research on the impact of Twitter mentions on publication citation volume in otolaryngology.

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cross-sectional analysis.

SETTING: Altmetric Twitter mention and Google Scholar citation rosters.

SYNOPSIS: Researchers identified 300 original research articles published in 10 leading otolaryngology journals in January 2019. In March 2021, they collected Twitter mentions and academic literature citations each article received over that 26-month period. Twitter mentions were tracked through the Altmetric Bookmarklet internet browser extension and citation data determined through Google Scholar. Researchers used two-tailed T test analysis to compare Twitter men – tions and citation metrics of articles. Of all articles, 50.7% had at least one Twitter mention; of all 1,758 Twitter mentions, 25% occurred within the first week of online publication, and 64% occurred between online and print publication. Articles men – tioned on Twitter had 1.6-fold more Google Scholar citations that articles with no Twitter mentions. Articles self-tweeted by authors (8%) were associated with an 8.4-citation increase when compared with articles not shared by their authors on Twitter. Authors note that the positive association between Twitter activity and an article does not imply causation, but they cite the growing volume of academic publications as possible impetus for using Twitter as a parsing device and networking tool. Study limitations include the use of cross-section methodology, which restricts data interpretation scope and precludes causal analysis.

CITATION: Deshpande N, Crossley JR, and Malekzadeh S, et al. Association between Twitter mentions and academic citations in otolaryngology literature. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2022;167:73–78.