Figure 1
Screenshots (as of 4 June 2022) of the Twitter profile descriptions (1) for an explicitly unofficial account of the Review of Economic Studies, (2) for the Central European History Society which also covers its journal, (3) for multiple journals of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and (4) for book reviews in the journal Studies in Religion
Table 1
Share of journals with Twitter accounts by Web of Science index (as of mid-2022). (SCIE = Science Citation Index Expanded, SSCI = Social Science Citation Index, AHCI = Arts and Humanities Citation Index). *Note: the numbers in the ‘Total’-row do not add up the former rows due to overlapping categories
| Index | Journals … | … with Twitter | … without Twitter | Share of Journals with Twitter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCIE | 9,560 | 2,120 | 7,440 | 22.2% |
| SSCI | 3,565 | 1,252 | 2,313 | 35.1% |
| AHCI | 1,854 | 511 | 1,343 | 27.6% |
| Total* | 13,821 | 3,485 | 10,336 | 25.2% |
Figure 2
Cumulative share of journals without dedicated Twitter accounts, 2007-2021
Table 2
Share of journals with Twitter accounts by publisher (as labelled by Web of Science), only taking into account publishers with at least 10 distinct journals in Web of Scienceߡs SSCI, SCIE or AHCI
| Rank | Publisher | Journals | Share of Journals with Twitter | Rank | Publisher | Journals | Share of Journals with Twitter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AMER MEDICAL ASSOC | 12 | 100.0% | 13 | HUMAN KINETICS PUBL INC | 16 | 68.8% |
| 2 | FUTURE MEDICINE LTD | 11 | 90.9% | 14 | HOGREFE PUBLISHING CORP | 11 | 63.6% |
| 3 | AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC | 10 | 90.0% | 15 | FRONTIERS MEDIA SA | 48 | 62.5% |
| 4 | AMER PHYSICAL SOC | 13 | 84.6% | 16 | AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY | 13 | 61.5% |
| 5 | BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP | 41 | 80.5% | 17 | PENSOFT PUBLISHERS | 13 | 61.5% |
| 6 | ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON | 15 | 80.0% | 18 | UNIV CALIFORNIA PRESS | 20 | 60.0% |
| 7 | AMER PHYSIOLOGICAL SOC | 13 | 76.9% | 19 | AMER CHEMICAL SOC | 61 | 57.4% |
| 8 | MDPI | 95 | 76.8% | 20 | LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS | 214 | 53.7% |
| 9 | COPERNICUS GMBH | 24 | 75.0% | 21 | ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY | 41 | 53.7% |
| 10 | NATURE PORTFOLIO | 79 | 73.4% | 22 | ADIS INT LTD | 15 | 46.7% |
| 11 | SLACK INC | 11 | 72.7% | 23 | IEEE COMPUTER SOC | 26 | 46.2% |
| 12 | CELL PRESS | 26 | 69.2% | 24 | MOSBY-ELSEVIER | 24 | 45.8% |
| 25 | PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD | 24 | 45.8% |
Table 3
Twitter presence of journals in the various categories; summary statistics grouped by the respective Web of Science index. (SCIE = Science Citation Index Expanded; SSCI = Social Science Citation Index; AHCI = Arts and Humanities Citation Index.) * The ‘Total’-row includes journals with multiple attributions to the three indices
| Index | Avg | Median | Mode | Std.Dev. | Min | Q1 | Q3 | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCIE | 21.5% | 19.4% | 20.0% | 13.3% | 0.0% | 11.5% | 30.8% | 60.0% |
| SSCI | 35.0% | 34.6% | 14.3% | 16.8% | 7.7% | 21.3% | 45.4% | 74.7% |
| AHCI | 29.1% | 26.3% | 66.7% | 16.9% | 6.2% | 16.3% | 34.7% | 66.7% |
| Total* | 25.5% | 22.4% | 16.1% | 15.7% | 0.0% | 14.3% | 35.2% | 74.7% |
Figure 3
Share of journals on Twitter, grouped by research category and Web of Science index. (SSCI = Social Science Citation Index, AHCI = Arts and Humanities Citation Index)
Figure 4
Share of journals on Twitter, grouped by research category, covering all journals in the SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded)
Table 4
Number of Tweets per year across all journals with Twitter accounts, grouped by Web of Science index, using summed numbers from 2020 and 2021 and divided by two (for the two years). (SCIE = Science Citation Index Expanded; SSCI = Social Science Citation Index; AHCI = Arts and Humanities Citation Index.) * The ‘Total’-row includes journals with multiple attributions to the three indices
| Index | Avg | Median | Mode | Std.Dev. | Min | Q1 | Q3 | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCIE | 306 | 163.0 | 0.5 | 357 | 0.5 | 50.2 | 416 | 1 557 |
| SSCI | 174 | 83.5 | 1.5 | 248 | 0.5 | 30.5 | 196 | 1 546 |
| AHCI | 210 | 63.5 | 11.5 | 333 | 0.5 | 18.0 | 196 | 1 526 |
| Total* | 256 | 116.0 | 0.5 | 332 | 0.5 | 36.5 | 329 | 1 557 |
Table 5
The 30 most prolific Twitter accounts in terms of the number of Tweets issued each year (average count across 2020 and 2021)
| Journal | Annual Tweets | Journal | Annual Tweets |
|---|---|---|---|
| JAMA Ophthalmology | 1,557.0 | Journal of Clinical Nursing | 1,444.5 |
| JAMA Otolaryngology | 1,557.0 | Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology | 1,428.5 |
| JAMA Dermatology | 1,555.0 | Journal of Cell Biology | 1,423.5 |
| JAMA Cardiology | 1,553.5 | Journal of Controlled Release | 1,414.5 |
| JAMA Neurology | 1,552.5 | European Journal of Neuroscience | 1,410.5 |
| JAMA Psychiatry | 1,546.5 | Hypertension | 1,406.5 |
| JAMA Surgery | 1,543.5 | ChemCatChem | 1,406.0 |
| JAMA Oncology | 1,535.5 | Nature Plants | 1,403.3 |
| British Journal for the Philosophy of Science | 1,526.5 | Journal of Cardiothoracic & Vascular Anesthesia | 1,399.0 |
| JAMA Internal Medicine | 1,518.5 | Mayo Clinic Proceedings | 1,395.0 |
| JAMA Pediatrics | 1,511.5 | Journal of Experimental Medicine | 1,390.5 |
| Colorectal Disease | 1,496.5 | Journal of Clinical Oncology | 1,379.5 |
| Current Sociology | 1,480.5 | Critica Letteraria | 1,378.5 |
| Journal of Athletic Training | 1,478.0 | Molecules | 1,373.0 |
| Lancet Infectious Diseases | 1,470.5 | Architectural Review | 1,371.0 |
Figure 5
Number of Tweets issued by journals each year based on data from 2020 and 2021
Table 6
Community engagement ratio across all journals with Twitter accounts, grouped by Web of Science index, using Tweets from 2020 and 2021. (SCIE = Science Citation Index Expanded; SSCI = Social Science Citation Index; AHCI = Arts and Humanities Citation Index)
| Index | Avg | Median | Mode | Std.Dev. | Min | Q1 | Q3 | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCIE | 0.47 | 0.43 | 0.50 | 0.33 | 0 | 0.27 | 0.61 | 2.98 |
| SSCI | 0.43 | 0.36 | 0.01 | 0.39 | 0 | 0.15 | 0.60 | 4.83 |
| AHCI | 0.55 | 0.50 | 1.00 | 0.39 | 0 | 0.31 | 0.71 | 4.50 |
| Total* | 0.48 | 0.42 | 0.01 | 0.39 | 0 | 0.21 | 0.64 | 4.83 |
Figure 6
The extent to which scientific journals interact with distinct other users per Tweet
Table 7
Self-description of scientific journals based on the occurrence of terms in their Twitter profile descriptions
| Aspect of self-description | Regular Expression | Number of Journals | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Access | open access|\boa\b | 231 | 6.0% |
| Impact Factor | \bJIF\b|Impact.Factor|CiteScore|[0-9](\\.|,)[0-9][0-9]|most.cited|highly.cited | 263 | 6.8% |
| Peer-reviewed | peer.review|\breviewed\b|refereed | 595 | 15.6% |