Conversation about “The Conversation” in the Australian Twittersphere

Through the publication of articles written by scholars with editorial assistance from journalists, The Conversation website has become a major platform for the amplification of scholarly content, including the sciences. Founded in Australia in March 2011, they have now expanded to editions in Africa, France, United Kingdom, United States, and a Global edition. The Conversation actively encourages the sharing of articles on social media with share buttons for Email, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn at the top of each article and larger Twitter and Facebook share buttons at the bottom of the article. They also encourage republishing of the articles and provide a republish button to assist with republishing with proper attribution and acknowledgement of the original article.

By examining how people share articles from The Conversation, this project provides an opportunity to better understand engagement with academic research on social media, in order to contribute towards developing new measures of the impact of the research.

full abstract: http://2017conf.asc.asn.au/sessions17/conversation-about-the-conversation/