Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Social Media and Communication by Scientists:M. S. Swaminathan on Twitter


 

Scientists use popular media to share views or facilitate greater understanding of their work. Social media also offers scientists the opportunity to build public opinion. Hailed as one of three most influential Indians of the 20th century by Time Magazine, renowned agriculture scientist M. S. Swaminathan has written prolifically in scientific and mainstream media. From March 2015, for a period of one year, his use of social media platform Twitter is being taken up as a case study of social media communication by scientists. This article analyses themes articulated by a scientist on social media and finds that this provides an entry for discussions on science and development. Through this study, it is suggested that scientists, especially in India, can intervene more actively, for greater authenticity, accuracy and understanding among social media users on scientific subjects.

Keywords

Agriculture, Policy, Scientists, Science Communication, Social Media, Twitter.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Spaeth, A., M. S. Swaminathan. Time, 23–30 August 1999, pp. 110–111.

  • Hermida, A., From TV to Twitter: how ambient news became ambient journalism. Media Cult. J., 2010, 13(2); http://journal.mediaculture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/220

  • Cuyler, A., Social networking: leveraging Twitter, linked in and facebook. In The Connected Lawyer, American Bar Association, 2011, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 18–23.

  • Wu, S. Hofman, J. M. Mason, A. M. and Watts, J. D., Who says what to whom on Twitter. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on World Wide Web, ACM, New York, 2011, pp. 705–714.

  • Wright, K. D. and Hinson, M. D., An analysis of the increasing impact of social and other new media on public relations practice, Paper Presented to 12th Annual International Public Relations Research Conference, Florida, 2009.

  • Pak, A. and Paroubek, P., Twitter as a corpus for sentiment analysis and opinion mining. In Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on International Language Resources and Evaluation in Malta, 2010.

  • Eperen, L. V. and Marincola, F. M., How scientists use social media to communicate their research. J. Trans. Med., 2011, 9, 199.

  • Pearce, K. E., Counting to nowhere: social media adoption and use as an opportunity for public scholarship and engagement, Social Media + Society, Sage Publications, 2015.

  • Parsons, E. C. M., Shiffman, D. S., Darling, E. S., Spillman, N. and Wright, A. J., Editorial in Conservation Biology, Society for Conservation Biology, 2013, vol. 28, no, 2, pp. 299–301.

  • Bode, L. and Dalrymple, K. E., Politics in 140 characters or less: campaign communication, network interaction, and political participation on Twitter. J. Polit. Marketing, 2014, 1–22.

  • Ehrenberg, R., Social media sway: worries over political misinformation on Twitter attract scientists’ attention. Society for Science & the Public. Sci. News, 2012, 182(8), 22–25.

  • Darling, E. S., Shiffman, D., Cote, I. M. and Drew, J. A., The role of Twitter in the life cycle of a scientific publication. Ideas Ecol. Evol., 2013, 6, 32–43.

  • Allen, J., Abrams, K., Meyers, C. and Shultz, A., A little birdie told me about agriculture: best practices and future uses of Twitter in agricultural communications. J. Appl. Commun., 2012, 94(3 and 4), 6–21.

  • Kesavan, P. C. and Iyer, R. D., M. S. Swaminathan: a journey from the frontiers of life sciences to the state of a ‘Zero Hunger’ world. Curr. Sci., 2014, 107(12).

  • Servai, S., Wall Street Journal, https://blogs.wsj.com/indiareal-time/2014/10/10/nobel-peace-prize-contenders-include-indian-geneticistm-s-swaminathan/ (accessed on 10 October 2014).

  • Akin, J. C., How to discover and use social media-related evidence, Litigation, American Bar Association, 2011, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 32–34.

  • Entman, R. M, Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. J. Commun., 1993, 43(4), 51–58.

  • Bruns, A. and Stieglitz, S., Towards more systematic Twitter analysis: metrics for tweeting activities. Int. J. Soc. Res. Methodol., 2013, 16(2), 91–108.

  • Ebner, M. and Reinhardt, W., Social networking in scientific conferences: Twitter as tool for strengthen a scientific community. In Conference Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Science 2.0 for TEL at the 4th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, Nice, 2009.


Abstract Views: 419

PDF Views: 124




  • Social Media and Communication by Scientists:M. S. Swaminathan on Twitter

Abstract Views: 419  |  PDF Views: 124

Authors

Abstract


Scientists use popular media to share views or facilitate greater understanding of their work. Social media also offers scientists the opportunity to build public opinion. Hailed as one of three most influential Indians of the 20th century by Time Magazine, renowned agriculture scientist M. S. Swaminathan has written prolifically in scientific and mainstream media. From March 2015, for a period of one year, his use of social media platform Twitter is being taken up as a case study of social media communication by scientists. This article analyses themes articulated by a scientist on social media and finds that this provides an entry for discussions on science and development. Through this study, it is suggested that scientists, especially in India, can intervene more actively, for greater authenticity, accuracy and understanding among social media users on scientific subjects.

Keywords


Agriculture, Policy, Scientists, Science Communication, Social Media, Twitter.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv114%2Fi09%2F1840-1845