Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
10-17-2020
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the entire world. This study aimed to measure how well COVID-19 articles attracted in the social web during the deadly pandemic period. A total of 145 articles from Nature journal were collected and analyzed to gauge the major metrics from various social platforms. The results showed that social media attention to the articles was fluctuating in each month recording an upward and downward trend. Twitter was the major carrier of COVID-19 articles with total 143452 mentions followed by news outlets with 5251 mentions. Articles were yet to penetrate in many other platforms like Highlights, Wiki, Video uploading and F1000. No metrics were recorded from reference managers manifesting that COVID-19 articles were travelling fast in social media rather than reference managers. Open access articles did not find any social media attention benefits compared to Non-open access articles. The findings of the study would give a proper insight into how well the COVID-19 articles are penetrated and discussed in social media platforms.