Politics Departments on Twitter: A League Table

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	Twitter	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	Twitter	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 9^th place on the follower league table to 26^th 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.