Invited talk given as part of the Nuffield/Oxford Internet Institute Social Netowkrs Seminar Series at Nuffield College. I thank Bernie Hogan for inviting me and Ralph Schroeder and Eric Meyer for being my hosts at OII.

1. Cornelius Puschmann
School of Library and Information Science,
Humboldt University of Berlin /
Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG)
A Tale of Two Platforms:
Emerging communicative patterns
in two scientific blog networks
Nuffield/Oxford Internet Institute Social Networks Seminar Series
Nuffield College, Oxford
11th February 2013
photos by http://www.flickr.com/people/7455207@N05/

2. This talk
The context of my research
Framing the issue:
How can we describe new forms
of scholarly communication online?
Tracing the evolution of two scholary blog platforms

3. in a broader sense:
science and scholarship as networks of
knowledge (citation networks, social
networks, conceptual networks)
net· work
ˈnet-ˌwərk
in a narrower sense:
hyperlinks between blogs on two
scholarly blogging platforms

4. Prior and related research
• Junior Researchers Group „Science and the
Internet“ (University of Düsseldorf, 2010-2012)
• Networking, visibility, information: a study of digital
genres of scholarly communication and the
motives of their users (DFG grant, Humboldt
University Berlin, 3/2012-2/2015)
• Open Science project (Alexander von Humboldt
Institute for Internet and Society, 2011-)
• Oxford e-Social Science Project (OeSS,
2005-2012)

5. "Scholarship in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities is
evolving, but at different rates and in different ways. While the
new technologies receive the most attention, it is the
underlying social and policy changes that are most profound...
This is an opportune moment to think about what we should
be building." (Borgman, 2008, p. xvii)

6. methods/tools data peer
ication revi
com mun ew
How does the Internet reshape
science and scholarship?
funding mology
relationship with the public e pisto

7. be
tw a
ee ma
n
te
collabora'on
1.0
(sharing)
sc u r
ien s
's
ts
an
d
collabora'on
2.0
(contribu'ng)
am
collabora'on
3.0
(cocrea'ng)
on
g
s
cie
's n
ts
(Du9on,
2008)

8. How significant is social media
for scholarly communication?
• Internet
users
who
(some/mes)
read
blogs:
• Germany:
7%
(ARD/ZDF
Onlinestudie
2011)
• USA:
32%
(Pew
Internet
2010)
• Japan:
80%
(comScore
2011)
• Researchers
who
(some/mes)
read
blogs:
• Germany:
8%
(study
„Digitale
WissenschaPskommunika/on“
2010-­‐2011)
• UK:
~7%
(study
„Impact
of
Web
2.0
on
Scholarly
Communica/on“
2009)
The
acceptance
of
blogs
varies
greatly
from
country
to
country!

9. How significant is social media
for scholarly communication?
"How
do
you
stay
in
touch
with
colleagues?"
(survey
among
researchers
conducted
by
Bader,
Fritz
&
Gloning,
2012)
•
in
person:
96%
•
phone:
49%
•
audio/videoconferencing:
21%
•
email:
94%
•
mailing
lists:
24%
•
blogs:
4%
(law:
10%)
•
scholarly
social
networks
(e.g.
ResearchGATE):
5%
•
conven/onal
social
networks
(e.g.
Facebook):
5%
•
Twiger:
2%
•
wikis:
6%

10. Is anything new?
• formal scholarly communication is
a highly resilient system
• acceptance and use of social media
among academics remains low
• but: ,pockets‘ of adoption exist in
some local and disciplinary
scholary communities

11. How do scholarly blogs fit it?

12. Scholarly blog research
• Mortensen and Walker (2002):
blogs as tools for writing and knowledge management
• Walker (2006): change of usage over time
• Gregg (2009): blogs as a subcultural form of expression, part of
constructing a professional identity
• Bar-Ilan (2004): aims of scholars inferred from form and content
• Luzón (2009): use of hyperlinks in academic blogs
• Kouper (2010): “virtual water cooler” for experts
• Kjellberg (2010): diverse set of functions for different users
• Shema, Bar-Ilan, & Thelwall (2012): what sources of research do
scholarly bloggers link to?
• Fausto et al (2012): systematic content-based study of
ResearchBlogging.org (dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050109)

13. Aims of blog data analysis
1. Exploration
How can academic blogging be best described?
2. Comparison to antecedent genres
How do practices in academic blogging differ from
practices in formal publishing?
3. Comparison of platforms
How do scholarly blog platforms compare?
comments content language
use of hyperlinks

14. Scholarly blogging platforms
Scilogs ResearchBlogging Hypotheses
launched 2007 2007 2004
type publisher publisher* publicly funded
# blogs ~60 1,230 456
# posts ~7,500 26,960 45,528

15. Hypotheses.org(*) Researchblogging.org(**)
Hypotheses.org: disciplines of most active blogs (n=74)
History
Sociology
Political Science
Asian Studies
Library Science
other
Cultural Studies
Urban Studies
* based on those blogs with more than 100 posts (n=74) ** reproduced from Fausto et al, 2012

16. Hypotheses.org: languages by post
french
other
catalan
german
spanish
portuguese english

17. Hypotheses.org: active blogs per year
400
300
blogs
200
100
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

18. 0 500 1000 1500
2004−01
2004−02
2004−03
2004−04
2004−05
2004−06
2004−07
2004−08
2004−09
2004−10
2004−11
2004−12
2005−01
2005−02
2005−03
2005−04
2005−05
2005−06
2005−07
2005−08
2005−09
2005−10
2005−11
2005−12
2006−01
2006−02
2006−03
2006−04
2006−05
2006−06
2006−07
2006−08
2006−09
2006−10
2006−11
2006−12
2007−01
2007−02
2007−03
2007−04
2007−05
2007−06
2007−07
2007−08
2007−09
2007−10
2007−11
2007−12
2008−01
2008−02
2008−03
2008−04
2008−05
2008−06
2008−07
2008−08
2008−09
2008−10
2008−11
2008−12
Posts per month starting 2004−01
2009−01
2009−02
2009−03
2009−04
2009−05
2009−06
2009−07
2009−08
2009−09
2009−10
2009−11
2009−12
2010−01
2010−02
2010−03
2010−04
2010−05
2010−06
2010−07
2010−08
2010−09
2010−10
2010−11
2010−12
2011−01
2011−02
2011−03
2011−04
Hypotheses.org v. Researchblogging.org
2011−05
2011−06
2011−07
2011−08
2011−09
2011−10
2011−11
2011−12
2012−01
2012−02
2012−03
2012−04
2012−05
2012−06
2012−07

19. Hypotheses: blogs by number of posts
6000
5000
number of posts
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1 19 40 61 82 106 133 160 187 214 241 268 295 322 349 376 403 430
rank

20. one author, 6k posts since 2003

21. Hypotheses.org: posts, links, internal links per year
12000
posts
links
internal links
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

22. Hypotheses.org: mean outgoing links per blog & year
15
average links per blog
10
5
0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

23. Hypotheses.org: outgoing links by target
university/gov
news
blogs/wikipedia
homepage

24. Hypotheses.org: incoming vs. outgoing internal links
leo.hypotheses.org
250
guerre-froide.hypotheses.org
200
outgoing
150
100
50
0
0 50 100 150 200 250
incoming

25. Hypotheses.org: self−citations vs. internal links
600
internal links
self−citations
500
400
300
200
100
0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

26. Hypotheses.org: internal and self-linking (2008)

27. Hypotheses.org: internal and self-linking (2008-2009)

28. Hypotheses.org: internal and self-linking (2008-2010)

29. Hypotheses.org: internal and self-linking (2008-2011)

30. Hypotheses.org: internal and self-linking (2008-2012)

31. Network characteristics
rank betweenness centrality eigenvector centrality
1 leo 5760.6 penseedudiscours 1
2 tcp 1538.5 leo 0. 976
3 phonotheque 1175.6 tcp 0. 905
4 dhdi 956.7 phonotheque 0. 846
5 dhiha 534.2 infusoir 0. 787

32. Observations
1. Different platforms are very heterogenic in terms
of disciplines, languages, blogging style, ...
2. Hypotheses.org has both grown over time and the
blogs in it have become more closely connected
3. Subgroups emerge based on different factors
(topic, language, geography)
4. Bloggers link to a variety of sites, but a large
proportion is academic
5. Self-citation is very widespread

33. Thank you for your attention!

34. Bibliography
1. Bar-Ilan, J. (2004). An outsider’s view on topic-oriented blogging. Proceedings of the 13th international
World Wide Web conference on Alternate track papers & posters (pp. 28–34). New York: ACM. doi:
10.1145/1013367.1013373
2. Fausto, S., Machado, F. a, Bento, L. F. J., Iamarino, A., Nahas, T. R., & Munger, D. S. (2012). Research blogging:
indexing and registering the change in science 2.0. PloS one, 7(12), e50109. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.
0050109
3. Gregg, M. (2009). Banal Bohemia: Blogging from the Ivory Tower Hot-Desk. Convergence: The International
Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 15(4), 470–483. doi:10.1177/1354856509342345
4. Kjellberg, S. (2010). I am a Blogging Researcher: Motivations for Blogging in a Scholarly Context. First
Monday, 15(8). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/
2962/2580
5. Kouper, I. (2010). Science blogs and public engagement with science: practices, challenges, and
opportunities. Journal of Science Communication, 9(1), A02. Retrieved from http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/
Jcom0901(2010)A02/
6. Luzón, M. J. (2009). Scholarly hyperwriting: The function of links in academic weblogs. Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(1), 75–89. doi:10.1002/asi.20937
7. Mortensen, T., & Walker, J. (2002). Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool. In A.
Morrison (Ed.), (pp. 249–279). Oslo: InterMedia/UniPub.
8. Shema, H., Bar-Ilan, J., & Thelwall, M. (2012). Research blogs and the discussion of scholarly information. PloS
one, 7(5), e35869. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035869
9. Walker, J. (2006). Blogging from inside the ivory tower. In A. Bruns & J. Jacobs (Eds.), Uses of Blogs (pp. 127–
138). New York: Peter Lang Publishers.