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Cited by 158scientometrics and bibliometrics researchWeb visibility and informetricsAcademic Publishing and Open Access

Social impact in social media: A new method to evaluate the social impact of research

Open access
Pulido, Cristina M., Redondo-Sama, Gisela, Sordé-Martí, Teresa, Flecha, Ramon·2018·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0203117PMC PMC6114920
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Abstract

The social impact of research has usually been analysed through the scientific outcomes produced under the auspices of the research. The growth of scholarly content in social media and the use of altmetrics by researchers to track their work facilitate the advancement in evaluating the impact of research. However, there is a gap in the identification of evidence of the social impact in terms of what citizens are sharing on their social media platforms. This article applies a social impact in social media methodology (SISM) to identify quantitative and qualitative evidence of the potential or real social impact of research shared on social media, specifically on Twitter and Facebook. We define the social impact coverage ratio (SICOR) to identify the percentage of tweets and Facebook posts providing information about potential or actual social impact in relation to the total amount of social media data found related to specific research projects. We selected 10 projects in different fields of knowledge to calculate the SICOR, and the results indicate that 0.43% of the tweets and Facebook posts collected provide linkages with information about social impact. However, our analysis indicates that some projects have a high percentage (4.98%) and others have no evidence of social impact shared in social media. Examples of quantitative and qualitative evidence of social impact are provided to illustrate these results. A general finding is that novel evidences of social impact of research can be found in social media, becoming relevant platforms for scientists to spread quantitative and qualitative evidence of social impact in social media to capture the interest of citizens. Thus, social media users are showed to be intermediaries making visible and assessing evidence of social impact.

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  • Altmetrics can serve as a valuable index of societal impact, indicating public engagement and interest in research.

    “Altmetrics, on the other hand, can serve as a valuable index of societal impact, indicating public engagement and interest in research (Bornmann, 2014; Pulido et al., 2018).”

    From Can ChatGPT be used to predict citation counts, readership, and social media interaction? An exploration among 2222 scientific abstracts (2024) · cites this paper as Pulido et al., 2018

    The Literature review (page unavailable) says altmetrics have potential to measure broader impacts, including societal impact, and that social-media activity may indicate interest beyond specialist audiences. But the Discussion (page unavailable) distinguishes altmetrics, which measure how far research reaches society, from the paper’s method for identifying evidence of actual or potential social impact. The claim therefore treats public interest as a stronger index of societal impact than the paper establishes. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [23]Murphy, L. Grit Report. Greenbook research industry trends report. Grit Q3-Q4 2016; (Vol. 3–4). New York. Retrieved from https://www.greenbook.org/grit

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Authors
Pulido, C. M., Redondo-Sama, G., Sordé-Martí, T., & Flecha, R.
Affiliations
  • Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
  • Universidad de Zaragoza (ES)
Corresponding author
Pulido, Cristina M.
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2018-08-29
Volume
13
Issue
8
Pages
e0203117
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0203117
PMC
PMC6114920
OpenAlex
W2889275779
Cited by
158
References
19
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 2
FWCI
14.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Zaguan (University of Zaragoza Repository) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
FP7 Socio-Economic Sciences and Humanities (Grant Agreement n° 613202)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
Keywords
social impact of research, social media, altmetrics, research impact assessment, Twitter, Facebook, citizen participation
MeSH terms
Biology, Communication, Humans, Public Health, Research, Social Change, Sociometric Techniques, Genomics, Qualitative Research, Social Media

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