An exploratory, descriptive analysis is presented of the national orientation of scientific, scholarly journals as reflected in the affiliations of publishing or citing authors. It calculates for journals covered in Scopus an Index of National Orientation (INO), and analyses the distribution of INO values across disciplines and countries, and the correlation between INO values and journal impact factors. The study did not find solid evidence that journal impact factors are good measures of journal internationality in terms of the geographical distribution of publishing or citing authors, as the relationship between a journal's national orientation and its citation impact is found to be inverse U-shaped. In addition, journals publishing in English are not necessarily internationally oriented in terms of the affiliations of publishing or citing authors; in social sciences and humanities also USA has their nationally oriented literatures. The paper examines the extent to which nationally oriented journals entering Scopus in earlier years, have become in recent years more international. It is found that in the study set about 40 per cent of such journals does reveal traces of internati
Webology is an international peer-reviewed journal in English devoted to the field of the World Wide Web and serves as a forum for discussion and experimentation. It serves as a forum for new research in information dissemination and communication processes in general, and in the context of the World Wide Web in particular. This paper presents a Scientometric analysis of the Webology Journal. The paper analyses the pattern of growth of the research output published in the journal, pattern of authorship, author productivity, and subjects covered to the papers over the period (2013-2017). It is found that 62 papers were published during the period of study (2013-2017). The maximum numbers of articles were collaborative in nature. The subject concentration of the journal noted was Social Networking/Web 2.0/Library 2.0 and Scientometrics or Bibliometrics. Iranian researchers contributed the maximum number of articles (37.10%). The study applied standard formula and statistical tools to bring out the factual result.
Using "Analyze Results" at the Web of Science, one can directly generate overlays onto global journal maps of science. The maps are based on the 10,000+ journals contained in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of the Science and Social Science Citation Indices (2011). The disciplinary diversity of the retrieval is measured in terms of Rao-Stirling's "quadratic entropy." Since this indicator of interdisciplinarity is normalized between zero and one, the interdisciplinarity can be compared among document sets and across years, cited or citing. The colors used for the overlays are based on Blondel et al.'s (2008) community-finding algorithms operating on the relations journals included in JCRs. The results can be exported from VOSViewer with different options such as proportional labels, heat maps, or cluster density maps. The maps can also be web-started and/or animated (e.g., using PowerPoint). The "citing" dimension of the aggregated journal-journal citation matrix was found to provide a more comprehensive description than the matrix based on the cited archive. The relations between local and global maps and their different functions in studying the sciences in terms of journal lit
This study examines the social media uptake of scientific journals on two different platforms - X and WeChat - by comparing the adoption of X among journals indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) with the adoption of WeChat among journals indexed in the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD). The findings reveal substantial differences in platform adoption and user engagement, shaped by local contexts. While only 22.7% of SCIE journals maintain an X account, 84.4% of CSCD journals have a WeChat official account. Journals in Life Sciences & Biomedicine lead in uptake on both platforms, whereas those in Technology and Physical Sciences show high WeChat uptake but comparatively lower presence on X. User engagement on both platforms is dominated by low-effort interactions rather than more conversational behaviors. Correlation analyses indicate weak-to-moderate relationships between bibliometric indicators and social media metrics, confirming that online engagement reflects a distinct dimension of journal impact, whether on an international or a local platform. These findings underscore the need for broader social media metric frameworks that incorporate locally dom
All online sharing systems gather data that reflects users' collective behaviour and their shared activities. This data can be used to extract different kinds of relationships, which can be grouped into layers, and which are basic components of the multidimensional social network proposed in the paper. The layers are created on the basis of two types of relations between humans, i.e. direct and object-based ones which respectively correspond to either social or semantic links between individuals. For better understanding of the complexity of the social network structure, layers and their profiles were identified and studied on two, spanned in time, snapshots of the Flickr population. Additionally, for each layer, a separate strength measure was proposed. The experiments on the Flickr photo sharing system revealed that the relationships between users result either from semantic links between objects they operate on or from social connections of these users. Moreover, the density of the social network increases in time. The second part of the study is devoted to building a social recommender system that supports the creation of new relations between users in a multimedia sharing syst
In 2016, a network of social media accounts animated by Russian operatives attempted to divert political discourse within the American public around the presidential elections. This was a coordinated effort, part of a Russian-led complex information operation. Utilizing the anonymity and outreach of social media platforms Russian operatives created an online astroturf that is in direct contact with regular Americans, promoting Russian agenda and goals. The elusiveness of this type of adversarial approach rendered security agencies helpless, stressing the unique challenges this type of intervention presents. Building on existing scholarship on the functions within influence networks on social media, we suggest a new approach to map those types of operations. We argue that pretending to be legitimate social actors obliges the network to adhere to social expectations, leaving a social footprint. To test the robustness of this social footprint we train artificial intelligence to identify it and create a predictive model. We use Twitter data identified as part of the Russian influence network for training the artificial intelligence and to test the prediction. Our model attains 88% pred
Although beneficial information abounds on social media, the dissemination of harmful information such as so-called ``fake news'' has become a serious issue. Therefore, many researchers have devoted considerable effort to limiting the diffusion of harmful information. A promising approach to limiting diffusion of such information is link deletion methods in social networks. Link deletion methods have been shown to be effective in reducing the size of information diffusion cascades generated by synthetic models on a given social network. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of link deletion methods by using actual logs of retweet cascades, rather than by using synthetic diffusion models. Our results show that even after deleting 10\%--50\% of links from a social network, the size of cascades after link deletion is estimated to be only 50\% the original size under the optimistic estimation, which suggests that the effectiveness of the link deletion strategy for suppressing information diffusion is limited. Moreover, our results also show that there is a considerable number of cascades with many seed users, which renders link deletion methods inefficient.
Online harassment and abusive language continue to be a growing concern on social media platforms. In this study, we explore the power of group dynamics to shape the toxicity of Twitter conversations. First, we examine how the presence of others in a conversation can potentially diffuse Twitter users' responsibility to address a toxic reply. Second, we examine whether the toxicity of the first direct reply to a toxic tweet in conversations establishes group norms for subsequent replies. By doing so, we outline users participating in the conversation before the first toxic reply and the tone of initial responses to a toxic reply as explanatory factors that affect whether others feel uninhibited to post their own abusive or derogatory replies. We test this premise by analyzing a random sample of more than 187K tweets belonging to ~ 9K conversations. This analysis of group dynamics is motivated by a larger body of scholarship on contagion of antisocial behavior and the power of establishing social norms that maintain rather than sanction toxicity. We find evidence that an increased number of users participating in the conversation before receiving a toxic tweet is negatively associate
A number of journal classification systems have been developed in bibliometrics since the launch of the Citation Indices by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) in the 1960s. These systems are used to normalize citation counts with respect to field-specific citation patterns. The best known system is the so-called "Web-of-Science Subject Categories" (WCs). In other systems papers are classified by algorithmic solutions. Using the Journal Citation Reports 2014 of the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index (n of journals = 11,149), we examine options for developing a new system based on journal classifications into subject categories using aggregated journal-journal citation data. Combining routines in VOSviewer and Pajek, a tree-like classification is developed. At each level one can generate a map of science for all the journals subsumed under a category. Nine major fields are distinguished at the top level. Further decomposition of the social sciences is pursued for the sake of example with a focus on journals in information science (LIS) and science studies (STS). The new classification system improves on alternative options by avoiding the problem
The continuous interest in the social network area contributes to the fast development of this field. The new possibilities of obtaining and storing data facilitate deeper analysis of the entire network, extracted social groups and single individuals as well. One of the most interesting research topic is the dynamics of social groups, it means analysis of group evolution over time. Having appropriate knowledge and methods for dynamic analysis, one may attempt to predict the future of the group, and then manage it properly in order to achieve or change this predicted future according to specific needs. Such ability would be a powerful tool in the hands of human resource managers, personnel recruitment, marketing, etc. The social group evolution consists of individual events and seven types of such changes have been identified in the paper: continuing, shrinking, growing, splitting, merging, dissolving and forming. To enable the analysis of group evolution a change indicator - inclusion measure was proposed. It has been used in a new method for exploring the evolution of social groups, called Group Evolution Discovery (GED). The experimental results of its use together with the compa
Rankings of scholarly journals based on citation data are often met with skepticism by the scientific community. Part of the skepticism is due to disparity between the common perception of journals' prestige and their ranking based on citation counts. A more serious concern is the inappropriate use of journal rankings to evaluate the scientific influence of authors. This paper focuses on analysis of the table of cross-citations among a selection of Statistics journals. Data are collected from the Web of Science database published by Thomson Reuters. Our results suggest that modelling the exchange of citations between journals is useful to highlight the most prestigious journals, but also that journal citation data are characterized by considerable heterogeneity, which needs to be properly summarized. Inferential conclusions require care in order to avoid potential over-interpretation of insignificant differences between journal ratings. Comparison with published ratings of institutions from the UK's Research Assessment Exercise shows strong correlation at aggregate level between assessed research quality and journal citation `export scores' within the discipline of Statistics.
Publication patterns of 79 forest scientists awarded major international forestry prizes during 1990-2010 were compared with the journal classification and ranking promoted as part of the 'Excellence in Research for Australia' (ERA) by the Australian Research Council. The data revealed that these scientists exhibited an elite publication performance during the decade before and two decades following their first major award. An analysis of their 1703 articles in 431 journals revealed substantial differences between the journal choices of these elite scientists and the ERA classification and ranking of journals. Implications from these findings are that additional cross-classifications should be added for many journals, and there should be an adjustment to the ranking of several journals relevant to the ERA Field of Research classified as 0705 Forestry Sciences.
In recent months, the social impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gained considerable public interest, driven by the emergence of Generative AI models, ChatGPT in particular. The rapid development of these models has sparked heated discussions regarding their benefits, limitations, and associated risks. Generative models hold immense promise across multiple domains, such as healthcare, finance, and education, to cite a few, presenting diverse practical applications. Nevertheless, concerns about potential adverse effects have elicited divergent perspectives, ranging from privacy risks to escalating social inequality. This paper adopts a methodology to delve into the societal implications of Generative AI tools, focusing primarily on the case of ChatGPT. It evaluates the potential impact on several social sectors and illustrates the findings of a comprehensive literature review of both positive and negative effects, emerging trends, and areas of opportunity of Generative AI models. This analysis aims to facilitate an in-depth discussion by providing insights that can inspire policy, regulation, and responsible development practices to foster a human-centered AI.
Network inference is the process of deciding what is the true unknown graph underlying a set of interactions between nodes. There is a vast literature on the subject, but most known methods have an important drawback: the inferred graph is not guaranteed to explain every interaction from the input trace. We consider this an important issue since such inferred graph cannot be used as input for applications that require a reliable estimate of the true graph. On the other hand, a graph having trace feasibility guarantees can help us better understand the true (hidden) interactions that may have taken place between nodes of interest. The inference of such graph is the goal of this paper. Firstly, given an activity log from a social network, we introduce a set of constraints that take into consideration all the hidden paths that are possible between the nodes of the trace, given their timestamps of interaction. Then, we develop a nontrivial modification of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm by Newman [1], that we call Constrained-EM, which incorporates the constraints and a set of auxiliary variables into the inference process to guide it towards the feasibility of the trace. Experi
International collaboration is sometimes encouraged in the belief that it generates higher quality research or is more capable of addressing societal problems. Nevertheless, while there is evidence that the journal articles of international teams tend to be more cited than average, perhaps from increased international audiences, there is no science-wide direct academic evidence of a connection between international collaboration and research quality. This article empirically investigates the connection between international collaboration and research quality for the first time, with 148,977 UK-based journal articles with post publication expert review scores from the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). Using an ordinal regression model controlling for collaboration, international partners increased the odds of higher quality scores in 27 out of 34 Units of Assessment (UoAs) and all Main Panels. The results therefore give the first large scale evidence of the fields in which international co-authorship for articles is usually apparently beneficial. At the country level, the results suggests that UK collaboration with other high research-expenditure economies generates higher q
Dyads of journals related by citations can agglomerate into specialties through the mechanism of triadic closure. Using the Journal Citation Reports 2011, 2012, and 2013, we analyze triad formation as indicators of integration (specialty growth) and disintegration (restructuring). The strongest integration is found among the large journals that report on studies in different scientific specialties, such as PLoS ONE, Nature Communications, Nature, and Science. This tendency towards large-scale integration has not yet stabilized. Using the Islands algorithm, we also distinguish 51 local maxima of integration. We zoom into the cited articles that carry the integration for: (i) a new development within high-energy physics and (ii) an emerging interface between the journals Applied Mathematical Modeling and the International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. In the first case, integration is brought about by a specific communication reaching across specialty boundaries, whereas in the second, the dyad of journals indicates an emerging interface between specialties. These results suggest that integration picks up substantive developments at the specialty level. An advantage o
A social network confers benefits and advantages on individuals (and on groups), the literature refers to these advantages as social capital. This paper presents a micro-founded mathematical model of the evolution of a social network and of the social capital of individuals within the network. The evolution of the network is influenced by the extent to which individuals are homophilic, structurally opportunistic, socially gregarious and by the distribution of types in the society. In the analysis, we identify different kinds of social capital: bonding capital, popularity capital, and bridging capital. Bonding capital is created by forming a circle of connections, homophily increases bonding capital because it makes this circle of connections more homogeneous. Popularity capital leads to preferential attachment: individuals who become popular tend to become more popular because others are more likely to link to them. Homophily creates asymmetries in the levels of popularity attained by different social groups, more gregarious types of agents are more likely to become popular. However, in homophilic societies, individuals who belong to less gregarious, less opportunistic, or major ty
Social media is becoming an increasingly important data source for learning about breaking news and for following the latest developments of ongoing news. This is in part possible thanks to the existence of mobile devices, which allows anyone with access to the Internet to post updates from anywhere, leading in turn to a growing presence of citizen journalism. Consequently, social media has become a go-to resource for journalists during the process of newsgathering. Use of social media for newsgathering is however challenging, and suitable tools are needed in order to facilitate access to useful information for reporting. In this paper, we provide an overview of research in data mining and natural language processing for mining social media for newsgathering. We discuss five different areas that researchers have worked on to mitigate the challenges inherent to social media newsgathering: news discovery, curation of news, validation and verification of content, newsgathering dashboards, and other tasks. We outline the progress made so far in the field, summarise the current challenges as well as discuss future directions in the use of computational journalism to assist with social m
Decentralized Online Social Networks (DOSNs) represent a growing trend in the social media landscape, as opposed to the well-known centralized peers, which are often in the spotlight due to privacy concerns and a vision typically focused on monetization through user relationships. By exploiting open-source software, DOSNs allow users to create their own servers, or instances, thus favoring the proliferation of platforms that are independent yet interconnected with each other in a transparent way. Nonetheless, the resulting cooperation model, commonly known as the Fediverse, still represents a world to be fully discovered, since existing studies have mainly focused on a limited number of structural aspects of interest in DOSNs. In this work, we aim to fill a lack of study on user relations and roles in DOSNs, by taking two main actions: understanding the impact of decentralization on how users relate to each other within their membership instance and/or across different instances, and unveiling user roles that can explain two interrelated axes of social behavioral phenomena, namely information consumption and boundary spanning. To this purpose, we build our analysis on user networks
To study the effects of Online Social Network (OSN) activity on real-world offline events, researchers need access to OSN data, the reliability of which has particular implications for social network analysis. This relates not only to the completeness of any collected dataset, but also to constructing meaningful social and information networks from them. In this multidisciplinary study, we consider the question of constructing traditional social networks from OSN data and then present several measurement case studies showing how variations in collected OSN data affects social network analyses. To this end we developed a systematic com parison methodology, which we applied to five pairs of parallel datasets collected from Twitter in four case studies. We found considerable differences in several of the datasets collected with different tools and that these variations significantly alter the results of subsequent analyses. Our results lead to a set of guidelines for researchers planning to collect online data streams to infer social networks.