Politics Departments on Twitter: A (Draft) League Table

Twitter is becoming an indispensable tool for the modern academic. Sceptics might doubt it, but the social media platform is perfectly designed to facilitate the dissemination of research findings, information about research projects and teaching materials. Beyond that, Twitter can significantly enhance the profile of an academic, their research and their respective School and University more generally.

It is no surprise, therefore, that there are now numerous guides on how academics can reap the benefits that Twitter offers (like here, here and here). But until now, and beyond individual academics, there has been little information (or discussion) about the extent to which actual departments of politics (or political science) are embracing the little blue bird.

We set out on an exploration of this area, by creating a draft league table of politics departments, which are organized according to their number of followers. This is a rather crude but still useful measure of how engaged the respective department is on Twitter. To reiterate, this is a draft league table, and we welcome those who would like us to record changes to contact our Social Media Officer @NottsPolitics, Naomi Racz. These changes will be recorded before we publish the final 2013 league table next week.

The table below only includes official departments or schools rather than, for example, accounts based on individual blogs, university modules or centres. So, for example, we do not include our own Short Not Brutish feed, which the Nottingham Centre for Normative Political Theory launched to encourage and promote research in this area. Similarly, we do not include high profile Twitter feeds for political science blogs, such as the LSE’s LSEEUROPP or LSEImpactBlog. Instead, we list the actual LSE Department of Government.

The figures reported below were accurate as of Monday May 13, 2013.

Based on these data, from a total of 33 departments in the UK who were found to have a Twitter profile, the average number of followers is 646. But there are considerable variations, ranging from the Department of War Studies within Social Science and Public Policy at King’s College London, which has over 4,100 followers, to the Department for Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, which has 50 followers. In fact, only six departments have rallied over 1,000 followers. There is also considerable variation in the level of activity, or tweeting. For example, War Studies at King’s occupies the top spot after only 486 tweets, while the School of Politics at Surrey stands in sixth place with well over 2,100 tweet

Clearly, each department will vary according to what they hope to gain from this activity. While some will use Twitter to engage with external audiences, others are clearly using the platform more narrowly, to engage with their students and publicise internal events. For this reason, we warn against interpreting these data as some indication of broader relevance or quality. But as higher education (sorry, #highered) moves into the social media world, pausing to reflect on where we all stand –and what this might mean- is a useful exercise in its own right.

School or Department	University	Twitter	Followers
Department of War Studies	King’s	warstudies	4,135
School of Politics and International Relations	Nottingham	NottsPolitics	2,153
Department of Government	LSE	LSEGovernment	1,949
Institute of Local Government	Birmingham	INLOGOV	1,323
Blavatnik School	Oxford	BlavatnikSchool	1,228
School of Politics	Surrey	SurreyPolitics	1,001
School of Politics and International Studies	Hull	HullPoliticsDep	983
Department of Politics and International Studies	SOAS	soaspolitics	940
Department of Politics and International Relations	Westminster	DPIRWestminster	737
Department of International Relations	LSE	LSEIRDept	676
Department of Politics	Birkbeck	bbkpolitics	667
School of Politics and International Relations	Kent	POLIRatKENT	547
BA Politics in Dept. of Behavioural & Social Sciences	Huddersfield	hudpolitics	509
Department of Government	Essex	uniessexgovt	435
Department of International Politics	Aberystwyth	InterpolAber	433
Department of Politics	Sheffield	ShefUniPolitics	361
Department of Politics and International Relations	Oxford	Politics_Oxford	360
Department of Political Science and International Studies	Birmingham	BhamPolsis	348
Politics and International Relations Division	Southampton	sotonpolitics	324
School of European Studies	Cardiff	cardiffeurop	313
School of Politics and International Relations	Queen Mary	QMPoliticsIR	296
Academy of Government	Edinburgh	Edinburgh_AoG	285
Department of Political Science	UCL	uclspp	212
School of Sociology, Politics and International Relations	Bristol	SPAISBristol	202
Department of Political Economy	King’s	kingspolecon	194
Department of Politics and International Relations	Leicester	PoliticsLeicsU	161
School of Politics, Economics and International Relations	Reading	UniRdg_SPEIR	130
Politics and International Relations	Edinburgh	EdinburghPIR	108
School of Politics and International Studies	Leeds	POLISatLeeds	101
Politics and International Relations Division	Plymouth	IRatPlymouth	78
Department of International Studies and Social Science	Coventry	covuniisss	51
School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy	Keele	SpireKeele	51
Department of Politics, Languages and Int. Studies	Bath	PoLIS_Bath	50