Baaghi TV, May 4, 2021
Role of Social Media in Research Productivity
By Abid Hussain
https://en.baaghitv.com/role-of-social-media-in-research-productivity/
Online tools permit users to communicate with one another in order to share
information, knowledge, and opinion; this mode of communication is called social
media. Research and Social Media are intertwined by the modern day scholars.
People often share their research for outreach. Modern day social networking is an
excellent source for scholars. They share their published works with their fellow
professionals in order to gain more recognition in their respective fields.
In the past, research was limited to the cupboard and was preserved in the lock, but
modern-day research is spreading like waves once uploaded; researchers are getting
endorsement for their published research. Gone are the days when the research was
limited to few peoples; now, people get inspiration from the published work of their
colleagues and acquaintance. It is believed that technology savvy is spending more
than 2 hours on social media and getting themselves aware of what other shares.
Scholars of today’s age are coming close together with subject specialists in their
respective fields. This can help them to know the modern trends that what’s going on.
People of common interests share published work and are getting Comments on
research via social media. This can help them to know their weaknesses and vital
components. Sometimes negative comments and insights from experts aware them to
address them in forthcoming papers.
Despite the enormous advantages of social media in research like community
outreach, it has also reshaped researchers’ brains to share excellent and fruitful ideas;
otherwise, they may get targeted by a substantial audience. Social Media is a userdriven platform that encourages users to diffuse effective content to a more vast
audience to interact with them for free. It provides dynamic features that enable users
to have a two-way relationship. Social media has been classified into six broader
types; sharing sites, blogs/micro-blogging, virtual online communities, social
networking sites (SNS), social bookmarking sites, and virtual worlds. The present
studies have proved that WhatsApp is the most comprehensive platform, followed by
Facebook and Twitter.
Research blogs like Academia, Research gate, Questia, Google Scholar, Slide-share
are few notable scholarly projects that engage scholars on larger scales and grant
them access to information. These sites have extensively been utilized for
collaborative learning and information dissemination.
Obviously, social media channels are helpful tolls for social engagement, sharing of
viral trust. It is believed that integrating social media into different communication
campaigns like civil society, government and other professionals that would be
meaningful to leverage social dynamics and networks to encourage participations,
conversation through spreading the key messages for a positive decision making.
Social Media is based on sharing and caring principles and enhances individuals’
research productivity, whether it’s a book, reviews, book chapters, journal
publication, conference proceedings, patents produced by them.
A person who shares research productivities through social media will get recognition
and high citations. Those who connect with social media will get enormous
information without payment. In Social media like Facebook, a researcher can
contact the authors directly and request them for granting access to the articles
/chapters in the time of needs. Once a paper is shared on social media, it can reach
millions of people in no time. People seek for quality research and researchers on
social media and access them to obtain positive ideas. A paper shared on social media
could avail more readership. Sometimes, people violate the authors’ copyright rules
without their agreement, but most authors share their paid content on social media to
attract readerships. Sharing free content on social media grasps reader attention on a
large scale.
Social Media is a significant asset for collaborative research. One who desires to get
more readership will share their published study. The research output in the research
environment cannot be overstated. Researchers’ moral responsibility is to share their
work through a different medium to reach the audience of their fields. Research’s
prime purpose is to share them with a knowledge seeker. Using Social Media as a
platform for research sharing could help both knowledge seekers and knowledge
providers.