
We had a great response to our draft league table and there have been four new additions to the league table: @LSEPubAffairs, @LivUniPol, @PSI_UEA and @SussexPolitics. Here is the final, updated version of the league table.
The follower numbers were accurate as of Monday May 20, 2013.
School or Department |
University |
|
Followers |
Department of War Studies | King’s | warstudies |
4,202 |
School of Politics and International Relations | Nottingham | NottsPolitics |
2,289 |
Department of Government | LSE | LSEGovernment |
1,988 |
Institute of Local Government | Birmingham | INLOGOV |
1,343 |
Blavatnik School | Oxford | BlavatnikSchool |
1,263 |
School of Politics | Surrey | SurreyPolitics |
1,014 |
School of Politics and International Studies | Hull | HullPoliticsDep |
991 |
Department of Politics and International Studies | SOAS | soaspolitics |
967 |
Department of Politics and International Relations | Westminster | DPIRWestminster |
751 |
Department of International Relations | LSE | LSEIRDept |
686 |
Department of Politics | Birkbeck | bbkpolitics |
682 |
School of Politics and International Relations | Kent | POLIRatKENT |
560 |
BA Politics in Dept. of Behavioural & Social Sciences | Huddersfield | hudpolitics |
525 |
Department of Government | Essex | uniessexgovt |
451 |
Department of International Politics | Aberystwyth | InterpolAber |
446 |
Department of Politics and International Relations | Oxford | Politics_Oxford |
374 |
Department of Politics | Sheffield | ShefUniPolitics |
373 |
Department of Political Science and International Studies | Birmingham | BhamPolsis |
352 |
Politics and International Relations Division | Southampton | sotonpolitics |
336 |
School of European Studies | Cardiff | cardiffeurop |
319 |
School of Politics and International Relations | Queen Mary | QMPoliticsIR |
302 |
Academy of Government | Edinburgh | Edinburgh_AoG |
301 |
Institute of Public Affairs | LSE | LSEPubAffairs |
228 |
Department of Political Science | UCL | uclspp |
224 |
School of Sociology, Politics and International Relations | Bristol | SPAISBristol |
207 |
Department of Political Economy | King’s | kingspolecon |
203 |
Department of Politics | Liverpool | LivUniPol |
184 |
Department of Politics and International Relations | Leicester | PoliticsLeicsU |
170 |
School of Politics, Economics and International Relations | Reading | UniRdg_SPEIR |
136 |
Politics and International Relations | Edinburgh | EdinburghPIR |
114 |
School of Politics and International Studies | Leeds | POLISatLeeds |
111 |
School of Political, Social and International Studies | UEA | PSI_UEA |
89 |
Politics and International Relations Division | Plymouth | IRatPlymouth |
87 |
Department of Politics, Languages and Int. Studies | Bath | PoLIS_Bath |
63 |
Department of International Studies and Social Science | Coventry | covuniisss |
59 |
School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy | Keele | SpireKeele |
58 |
Department of Politics | Sussex | SussexPolitics |
42 |
Other than these new additions, and despite most of the Twitter accounts gaining new followers since the draft league table was published, there has been very little change in the position of departments. This might suggest that departments joining Twitter now are always going to be at a disadvantage compared to those that adopted Twitter early on.
Indeed, @PJDunleavy suggested this very thing. So we decided to look into this to see if there is a link.
Days on Twitter were accurate as of Monday May 20, 2013.
As you might expect there is quite a high correlation between the number of followers a department has and the number of days it has been on Twitter.
However, there are some instances where departments that have not been on Twitter very long have managed to gain a lot of followers in a short time. For instance, @uniessexgov has been on Twitter for less than a year (208 days) and already has 451 followers. Similarly the follower numbers for @LSEGovernment seem disproportionate with the length of time the department has been on Twitter (729 days).
This might suggest that it is not in fact too late for those departments that haven’t signed up to Twitter. Our league table shows that out of 81 universities in the UK with a politics department, 31 have at least one Twitter account (five of the universities in the league table have more than one politics department on Twitter), so there are still a lot of departments out there that are not engaging with the social media channel. That’s not to say that every politics department in the UK should join Twitter or that the point of joining Twitter is to get as many followers as possible. As we have already pointed out, the way in which a department uses Twitter will affect the number of followers it is likely to get. However, if the aim of social science is to engage with society, then it seems many politics departments are missing out on an important opportunity.
Looking at the length of time departments have been on Twitter is also interesting as it reveals which politics departments were early adopters of the social media platform. @hudpolitics comes in first at 1,428 days on Twitter.
@KAMWright suggested looking at Klout scores, instead of follower numbers. Klout is a website that measures influence and gives social media accounts a score between 0 and 100 (100 being very influential). The influence score takes into account how many times a Twitter account’s tweets are retweeted and engaged with. This score gives an idea of how interesting and engaging a particular Twitter account is.
Klout scores were accurate as of Monday May 20, 2013.
School or Department |
University |
|
Klout |
School of Politics and International Relations | Nottingham | NottsPolitics |
56 |
Department of War Studies | King’s | warstudies |
50 |
Blavatnik School | Oxford | BlavatnikSchool |
48 |
Department of Government | LSE | LSEGovernment |
47 |
School of Politics and International Studies | Hull | HullPoliticsDep |
47 |
Institute of Local Government | Birmingham | INLOGOV |
46 |
School of Politics | Surrey | SurreyPolitics |
46 |
Department of Politics and International Studies | SOAS | soaspolitics |
44 |
Department of Politics | Birkbeck | bbkpolitics |
44 |
School of Politics and International Relations | Kent | POLIRatKENT |
44 |
Institute of Public Affairs | LSE | LSEPubAffairs |
44 |
Academy of Government | Edinburgh | Edinburgh_AoG |
43 |
Department of Political Science | UCL | uclspp |
43 |
Department of International Relations | LSE | LSEIRDept |
42 |
Politics and International Relations Division | Southampton | sotonpolitics |
42 |
BA Politics in Dept. of Behavioural & Social Sciences | Huddersfield | hudpolitics |
41 |
Department of International Politics | Aberystwyth | InterpolAber |
41 |
Department of Politics and International Relations | Oxford | Politics_Oxford |
41 |
School of Sociology, Politics and International Relations | Bristol | SPAISBristol |
40 |
Department of Political Science and International Studies | Birmingham | BhamPolsis |
39 |
Department of Politics | Sheffield | ShefUniPolitics |
38 |
Department of Government | Essex | uniessexgovt |
37 |
Department of Politics and International Relations | Leicester | PoliticsLeicsU |
37 |
School of Political, Social and International Studies | UEA | PSI_UEA |
37 |
School of Politics and International Studies | Leeds | POLISatLeeds |
34 |
Department of Politics and International Relations | Westminster | DPIRWestminster |
31 |
Department of Politics | Liverpool | LivUniPol |
31 |
School of European Studies | Cardiff | cardiffeurop |
30 |
Politics and International Relations Division | Plymouth | IRatPlymouth |
30 |
School of Politics and International Relations | Queen Mary | QMPoliticsIR |
29 |
Politics and International Relations | Edinburgh | EdinburghPIR |
29 |
Department of Political Economy | King’s | kingspolecon |
28 |
Department of Politics, Languages and Int. Studies | Bath | PoLIS_Bath |
26 |
Department of International Studies and Social Science | Coventry | covuniisss |
26 |
Department of Politics | Sussex | SussexPolitics |
26 |
School of Politics, Economics and International Relations | Reading | UniRdg_SPEIR |
24 |
School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy | Keele | SpireKeele |
18 |
On the whole Klout scores do seem to correlate with follower numbers. Most accounts are neither punching above their weight nor significantly less influential than you would expect given their follower numbers. There are some exceptions, such as @DPIRWestminster which drops from 9th place on the follower league table to 26th place on the Klout league table. Whilst @LSEPubAffairs, @Edinburgh_AoG and @uclspp all leap up on the Klout score league table. However, given that only two departments have a score of 50 or above, it seems there is still a long a long way to go before the platform is being fully utilised.
This league table is (as far as we are aware) the first of its kind to provide a survey of UK politics departments on Twitter. More and more politics departments, thinks tanks, academics and political organisations are joining Twitter – the Political Studies Association (@PolStudiesAssoc), for instance, is now on Twitter – and it is great to see new department Twitter accounts springing up even as we’ve been carrying out this survey. We hope that it will encourage others to start engaging with the platform and in turn promote not only their own research but also the discipline of politics as a whole.
Cambridge’s POLIS doesn’t seem to be on Twitter but the multidisciplinary CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities @CRASSHlive) includes lots of political science, is extremely active and has 2,583 followers.
I still think Patrick Dunleavy has a point about the thing to measure. I’m not suggesting that we all be instrumental and adhere slavishly to RCUK designs, but the Impact driver tends to push many departments into impact groupings with their own identities, so it might make sense for departments to focus on smaller group-based twitter accounts (in which, say, the group has a better handle on its output) than a big one (which might be run by one person, with most people clueless about its existence). The LSE in particular has done this well. The popular twitter brands are often based on an idea or a topic rather than a broader institutional brand (and, for example, Stirling is not listed, but it has a twitter account on Scottish referendums).
I also think that if I am writing an impact narrative/ template, I will make reference to the followers (although this has a cultish connotation) of individuals as much as (if not more than) followers of a department (likely to be populated disproportionately by the students taking a course with that department?). Even I am doing well compared to these departments – between Kent and Birbeck in the following and almost on a par with Blavatnik (3rd) on Klout, which makes me wonder about the impact of departments rather than their small proportion of active members.
For the sake of completeness, I will argue against myself to say that one problem with the accounts of individuals is that people may follow and retweet you because you are a good source of nonsense and trivia. For example, I am using my following to find out the details of a scene in The Mechanic (the Charles Bronson version). A lot of individual accounts may not necessarily be used to disseminate knowledge and exchange ideas. Maybe the departmental brand ensures that the twitter account is focused to that end.
Interesting. This list is a bit restrictive by not including the twitter following’s of blogsite’s like the LSEs and ours (Mancheter Policy Blogs), which are much larger than these departmental ones.
Colin