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Does newspapers coverage influence the citations count of scientific publications? An analysis of biomedical studies

Author

Listed:
  • Estelle Dumas-Mallet

    (Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases
    University of Bordeaux
    Centre Emile Durkheim)

  • André Garenne

    (Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases
    University of Bordeaux)

  • Thomas Boraud

    (Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases
    University of Bordeaux
    Centre Expert Parkinson, CHU Bordeaux)

  • François Gonon

    (Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases
    University of Bordeaux)

Abstract

Scientific results traditionally disseminate to the scientific community via scientific journals. Studies’ importance is assessed through the number of citations in those journals. The medialization concept postulates an increasing orientation of science towards the mass media. Here, taking up this concept, we hypothesized that if science is indeed medialized, studies reported in newspaper will receive a higher number of citations. Three studies, focusing on publications in a few prestigious scientific journals and a single year, already concluded towards a citation’s advantage for studies featured in the press. Here, we analyzed the citation counts of 496 biomedical studies published between 1988 and 2013 in 38 distinct peer-reviewed journals with impact factors ranging from 5 to 51.7. To disentangle the effects of the impact factor and of the media coverage on the citation counts, we associated studies covered in English-speaking newspapers with similar studies (i.e. on the same subject published the same year and in the same scientific journal) not reported in the press. We confirmed that, for the whole period, studies reported in newspapers received on average more citations. Comparing across three impact factor levels, we showed that the citations’ advantage was more pronounced for lower impact factors (IF

Suggested Citation

  • Estelle Dumas-Mallet & André Garenne & Thomas Boraud & François Gonon, 2020. "Does newspapers coverage influence the citations count of scientific publications? An analysis of biomedical studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 413-427, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:123:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03380-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03380-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. P Sage Anderson & Aubrey R Odom & Hunter M Gray & Jordan B Jones & William F Christensen & Todd Hollingshead & Joseph G Hadfield & Alyssa Evans-Pickett & Megan Frost & Christopher Wilson & Lance E Dav, 2020. "A case study exploring associations between popular media attention of scientific research and scientific citations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Yezhu Wang & Yundong Xie & Dong Wang & Lu Guo & Rongting Zhou, 2022. "Do cover papers get better citations and usage counts? An analysis of 42 journals in cell biology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(7), pages 3793-3813, July.

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