Building buzz: (scientists) communicating science in new media environments

Public communication about science faces a set of novel challenges, including the increasing complexity of research areas and the erosion of traditional journalistic infrastructures. Although scientists have traditionally been reluctant to engage in public communication at the expense of focusing on academic productivity, our survey of highly cited U.S. nano-scientists, paired with data on their social media use, shows that public communication, such as interactions with reporters and being mentioned on Twitter, can contribute to a scholar‟s scientific impact. Most importantly, being mentioned on Twitter amplifies the effect of interactions with journalists and other non-scientists on the scholar‟s scientific impact. Our study provides one of the first comprehensive empirical examinations on the impact of various media outreach on scientists' academic career that combines survey data with data on social media (e.g., Twitter) usage. The results may eventually force academics to think more carefully about defining academic impact in a world of sites, which combine social media metrics with indicators of scholarly productivity to measure the broader impact of academic work.