Urban Planning Academics and Twitter: Who and what?

Abstract

Twitter has increasingly become a resource used by academics to share scholarship and opinions within professional networks. This paper presents a descriptive analysis of Twitter use by urban planning faculty, reporting characteristics of users, the topics posted, and indicators of Twitter influence among urban planning faculty as well as those interested in planning from outside academic circles. Approximately one-third of urban planning academics are active Twitter users, and as of yet, there have been no empirical analyses of how and why they use the social media platform. This analysis uses Twitter data from active accounts for urban planning faculty in the U.S. and Canada identified as being used for professional purposes for the period from March 2007 to April 2019. Considering how planning academics use Twitter lends insights on its usefulness for academic discussion and scholarly communications. The conclusion discusses the prospects for planning academics to better utilize Twitter to broaden and deepen their professional activities while noting particular concerns.