(Micro)blogging science? Notes on potentials and constraints of new forms of scholarly communication

Academic publishing, as a practice and as a business, is undergoing the most significant changes in its 350-year history. Electronic journals and books, both open access and behind digital pay walls, are increasingly replacing printed publications. In addition to formal channels of scholarly communication, a wide array of semi-formal and informal channels such as email, mailing lists, blogs, microblogs, and social networking sites (SNS) are widely used by scientists to discuss their research (Borgman 2007, p. 47; Nentwich & König 2012, p. 50). Scholarly blogs and services such as Twitter and Facebook are increasingly attracting attention as new channels of science communication (see Bonetta 2007; Kjellberg 2010; Herwig et al. 2009). Radically different conceptualizations of scholarly (micro)blogging exist, with some users regarding them as a forum to educate the public, while others see them as a possible replacement for traditional publishing. This chapter will provide examples of blogs and microblogs as tools for scientific communication for different stakeholders, as well as discussing their implications for digital scholarship.