Which Papers Cited Which Tweets? An Empirical Analysis Based on Scopus Data

Abstract

Many altmetric studies analyze which papers were mentioned how often in specific altmetrics sources. In order to study the potential policy relevance of tweets from another perspective, we investigate which tweets were cited in papers. If many tweets were cited in publications, this might demonstrate that tweets have substantial and useful content. Overall, a rather low number of tweets (n=5506) were cited by less than 3000 papers. Most tweets do not seem to be cited because of any cognitive influence they might have had on studies; they rather were study objects. Most of the papers citing tweets are from the subject areas Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, and Computer Sciences. Most of the papers cited only one tweet. Up to 55 tweets cited in a single paper were found. This research-in-progress does not support a high policy-relevance of tweets. However, a content analysis of the tweets and/or papers might lead to a more detailed conclusion.