Bonnie Stewart

Open to influence: what counts as academic influence in scholarly networked Twitter participation

Within the academy, signals of a scholars academic influence are made manifest in indices like the h-index, which rank output. In open scholarly networks, however, signals of influence are less codified, and the ways in which they are enacted and understood have yet to be articulated. Yet the influence scholars cultivate in open networked publics intersects with institutional academia in grant-required measures of ‘public impact’, in media visibility, and in keynote and job opportunities. How do scholars within open networks judge whether another scholars signals are credible or worthy of engagement? What counts as academic influence on a platform like Twitter? This paper concludes that scholars employ complex logics of influence to assess the networked profiles and behaviors of peers and unknown entities. Significantly, these logics of influence depart from the codified terms of rank and bibliometric indexing on which conventional academic influence is judged. While some are numeric – participants recognized relatively large-scale accounts as a general signal of influence – recognizability and commonality are as important as or more important than quantifiable measures or credentials. The paper suggests that the impression of capacity for meaningful contribution is key to cultivating influence and the regard of actively networked peers.

Discreet Openness: Scholars’ Selective and Intentional Self-Disclosures Online

Research into emergent forms of scholarship focuses on academics’ use of technology for learning, teaching, and research. Very little attention has been paid in the literature to scholars’ uses of social media to disclose challenging personal and professional issues. This article addresses the identified gap in the literature and presents a qualitative investigation into the types of disclosures that 16 scholars made online and their reasons for doing so. Results identify wide-ranging personal and professional disclosures. Participants disclosed not only about academia-related issues but also about challenges pertaining to family, mental health, physical health, identity, and relationships. Some scholars disclosed as a way to grapple with challenges they faced; others disclosed tactically, sharing information for political rather than personal reasons. Yet others disclosed as a way to welcome care in their lives. In all instances, though, disclosures were selective, intentional, and approached with foresight.

Media literacy, social networking, and the Web 2.0 environment for the K-12 educator – By Belinha S de Abreu

Belinha de Abreu’s Media literacy, social networking, and the Web 2.0 environment for the K-12 educator lives up to its lengthy title and back cover blurb promises: it’s a comprehensive educational resource exploring social networking through the lens of media literacy. The book attempts to cover complex territory in simple terms, while still grappling with the significance of participatory culture and new media practices for education. That’s a lot to take on in fewer than two hundred pages, and de Abreu does a commendable job of outlining the landscape of social and educational change represented by Web 2.0 platforms and technologies.