JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Journalists comprise the largest group of verified, active Twitter accounts (Kamps, 2015; Mullin, 2015), but little, if anything, is known about the ways in which schools of nursing use Twitter to invite attention from and engagement with journalists and other members of the media. This study seeks to fill this gap.

Objective:

The study sought to answer two questions: (1) To what extent are the top 50 schools of nursing using hashtags that could attract/invite attention from journalists and media outlets on Twitter?; and (2) To what extent are the top fifty schools of nursing being followed on Twitter by journalists and media outlets?

Methods:

For the purposes of this study, hashtags were considered to be either inward-facing or outward-facing. Inward-facing hashtags were those intended to invite attention from/ interaction with nurses, members of the University/School community, or attendees at a nursing conference or Twitter chat. Outward-facing hashtags were those intended to invite attention from/interaction with people outside of the nursing and University/School community. Among the 11,143 tweets containing at least one hashtag, 79.83% of hashtags used were inward-facing. Only 1.15% (n=668) of the 58,184 unduplicated user accounts following the forty-seven schools of nursing belonged to members of the media.

Results:

For the purposes of this study, hashtags were considered to be either inward-facing or outward-facing. Inward-facing hashtags were those intended to invite attention from/ interaction with nurses, members of the University/School community, or attendees at a nursing conference or Twitter chat. Outward-facing hashtags were those intended to invite attention from/interaction with people outside of the nursing and University/School community. Among the 11,143 tweets containing at least one hashtag, 79.83% of hashtags used were inward-facing. Only 1.15% (n=668) of the 58,184 unduplicated user accounts following the forty-seven schools of nursing belonged to members of the media.

Conclusions:

Although the top forty-seven schools of nursing have an active social media presence on Twitter, collectively their use of hashtags functions more like an intranet to communicate with other nurses rather than as a tool to invite attention from and dialogue with members of the media. This may help to explain why so few members of the media follow these schools of nursing on Twitter. Schools of nursing school highlight the work of their faculty and students by using hashtags to connect that work to current events of interest to the general public.