Research Gate or Revolving Door? Uses and Gratifications of Academic Social Media Among Communication Scholars

Abstract

A survey of scholars in mass communication and related disciplines found that the academic social network ResearchGate is a popular platform for following like-minded academics, sharing one’s work, locating relevant research, and managing one’s academic reputation, in addition to gratifying more traditional social media needs, such as information seeking, social interaction, and even entertainment. The analysis revealed that academics who are extrinsically motivated to conduct research update their accounts more frequently but extract fewer benefits from the platform. Moreover, respondents agree that the RG Score generated by the social platform is not an accurate metric for one’s research impact.

Keywords

ResearchGate academic social networking intrinsic and extrinsic motivations uses and gratifications communication education tenure and promotion

ResearchGate is one of several academic social media platforms that have become popular in scholarly communities. Founded in 2008 by a computer scientist and two physicians, ResearchGate has more than 15 million members worldwide as of 2020 (ResearchGate, 2020). The founders’ intention was to provide a platform where educators from all over the globe can access others’ research as well as share their own publications or ongoing projects. According to the ResearchGate website, its mission is to “connect the world of science and make research open to all.”

ResearchGate ranks as the second most used platform by influential scholars, after Google Scholar Citations (Martín-Martín et al., 2016). Studies examining why researchers use this particular platform have focused primarily on the hard sciences (Lechuga & Lechuga, 2012; Martín-Martín et al., 2016; Thelwall & Kousha, 2015), although there has been some qualitative work done in the digital humanities as well (Quan-Haase et al., 2015). As universities increasingly encourage scholars to share their work outside the walls of the ivory tower of academia, social media have been touted as effective tools to increase the reach and impact of scholarship (Mewburn & Thomson, 2013). Hitchcock (2014) argued that social media make “good academic sense” for intellectuals hoping to impact the world and the broader social discourse, suggesting that blogs or tweets are not mere add-ons to scholarship but a reflection of the passion underpinning academic research. Building on the uses and gratifications and self-determination theories (SDTs), this study examines how and why communication scholars use ResearchGate as an academic social networking tool. The implications of this new platform on promotion and tenure decisions are also addressed.

Theoretical Framework

Uses and Gratifications of Social Media Among Academics

The wide adoption of social media, where users are both consumers and creators of content, has prompted a revival of the uses-and-gratifications (U&G) theory in the past few years, with research using the framework to understand how and why users engage with social networking sites. Describing media audiences as discerning, active, and motivated by specific needs, the theory focuses on what people do with the media rather than the impact media have on users (Katz et al., 1974). Shao (2009) identified three separate but interdependent uses of social media: consumption of content (for information, entertainment, or mood management), participation (for social interaction and virtual community development), and production (for self-expression and self-actualization). These uses have been documented in U&G studies focusing on academic audiences of social media. In addition to the benefits of networking and reaching a wider audience, Mewburn and Thomson (2013) found that academics use blogs for information, mentoring, and support. In-depth interviews (Segado-Boj et al., 2019) found that Spanish educators use social media, both generalist and academic, to keep abreast of developments and new ideas in their field and to peruse works from colleagues in their discipline. Research on Twitter use by digital humanities scholars (Quan-Haase et al., 2015) found that academics use the social networking site to satisfy informational needs (to share or solicit information, to disseminate their research, to maintain awareness of developments in the field) and social needs (to engage with and meet new scholars, to seek support). On the contrary, research on Twitter use by computer science professors and doctoral students found that the platform is used mainly for information rather than for peer networking or community development (Linek et al., 2017).

The U&G literature (Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1985) distinguishes between gratifications sought (GS), or the needs and motivations behind adopting media, and gratifications obtained (GO), or the extent to which audiences’ needs are satisfied by a specific platform or content. ResearchGate is the main focus of the present study, where survey questions gauged GO and motivations for continued use rather than reasons for joining the platform. Cognitive and psychological gratification categories were adopted from previous studies examining U&G of social media among academics, reviewed below, as well as adapted based on the platform’s unique affordances.

Given that currently there is no study examining how and why communication scholars use ResearchGate as an academic social networking tool, the following research questions are formulated:

RQ1: How frequently do communication scholars use ResearchGate?

RQ2: What kind of accounts do communication scholars follow on ResearchGate?

RQ3A: What are the main uses and gratifications of ResearchGate among mass communication scholars?

Zooming in on gender differences, Segado-Boj et al. (2019) found that female academics are more likely to worry about managing their professional reputations and personal lives on social platforms. Linek et al. (2017) found that male and female computer scientists did not differ in their uses of Twitter, but women had more reciprocal followers and were more likely to be followed by women. In terms of rank or academic status, Linek et al. (2017) found that few professors unilaterally follow doctoral students, whereas many PhD students follow professors who do not follow them back. The authors see in this imbalance or “strategic politeness behavior” a unique use of Twitter among budding scholars, namely, career planning. Likewise, LaPoe et al. (2017) found that scholars have a hard time balancing the need to appear social media savvy with the concern of hurting one’s reputation by posting information and opinions publicly. Building on these findings, this exploratory study asks the following question:

RQ3B: Are there any differences in uses and gratifications by gender and rank?

SDT

Academic units set research productivity standards for tenure and promotion, but are scholars meeting expectations because they have to or because they want to? SDT examines whether individuals are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated when making decisions about assimilative and growth-related activities. For the intrinsically motivated, motivation comes from within, from that person’s interest, curiosity, and enjoyment. Extrinsically motivated individuals are influenced by outside forces, such as punishments, constraints, and rewards. Deci et al. (1997) found that intrinsically—or optimally—motivated faculty are more likely to use best practices, to innovate, and to aim for excellence in teaching compared with extrinsically motivated faculty. This has important implications. Stupnisky et al. (2018) argued that self-motivated faculty are more likely to want to learn, improve their skills, and assimilate institutional values, leading to long-term success and career satisfaction. On the contrary, when motivations are external, faculty are more likely to experience negative feelings, achieve little, and ultimately leave the profession.

The SDT posits that human motivation operates on a continuum that ranges from the optimal level of intrinsic motivation to several categories of extrinsic motivation, depending on how externally regulated the performance of a task is, to amotivation or complete lack of motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). SDT distinguishes among several types of extrinsic motivation, where integrated motivation arises from perceiving a certain behavior as congruent with internal needs and values, identified motivation stems from seeing behavior as beneficial in achieving one’s personal goals, introjected motivation is inspired by feelings of guilt or anxiety, and external motivation is based solely on rewards or punishment avoidance (Stupnisky et al., 2017). The present study uses a simplified model, capturing motivation dimensions that fall at either end of the spectrum, under intrinsic or extrinsic/external incentives, as done in Curtin et al. (2018).

Studies in fields like health care (Vansteenkiste et al., 2012), social psychology (Brunell & Webster, 2013), and educational psychology (Deci & Ryan, 2000) have applied SDT. In recent years, research in the field of education built on the theory to examine student motivations in choosing their major (Madison et al., 2018) and faculty motivations to teach online (Sørebø et al., 2009) or review manuscripts for journals (Curtin et al., 2018). Curtin et al. (2018) found that intrinsic motivations, such as the satisfaction of helping others, were stronger for faculty willing to engage in peer review than extrinsic motivations, such as service required for career advancement. Stupnisky et al. (2017) found that pretenure faculty who are intrinsically motivated (i.e., find carrying out tasks like conducting research pleasant) are more likely to report success in their teaching and research endeavors. On the contrary, Curtin et al. (2018) found that early-career scholars are more likely to value extrinsic rewards compared with their tenured counterparts when it comes to volunteering to review for journals and conferences. Building on this line of research, the following questions are asked:

RQ4A: What are the motivations to conduct research among communication scholars who use ResearchGate?

RQ4B: Are there any differences in motivations to conduct research by gender and rank?

Research on Twitter use by academics found that sharing scholarly work with a wider audience is the main U&G, but with different rates of success or traction by type of institution (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2016). Namely, researchers at elite institutions had more followers, making Twitter less of the democratizing tool some proponents argued it was and Twitter popularity less of a meaningful metric of a scholar’s impact (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2016).

Unlike Twitter, ResearchGate does not only include popularity metrics like number of followers or reads, but it also generates an RG Score, similar to the Web of Science or Google Scholar h-index, which takes number of publications and citations into account as well as participation in projects and contributions to questions and answers on the platform. Given that the communication field does not recognize a sole measure of scholarly impact, partly due to social scientists’ diversity of scholarly output and the communication journals’ uneven indexing of articles, many institutions accept RG scores as indicators of one’s scholarly output for tenure and promotion or for recruitment (Orduna-Malea et al., 2017). This is in line with recommendations from scientists who have proposed the use of “scientometrics 2.0” to gauge researchers’ impact, recognizing that the social web, and particularly platforms such as social networks, blogs, microblogs, and social bookmarking sites, can be mined for research-impact indicators (Priem & Hemminger, 2010). The following research questions are formulated:

RQ5: Are motivations to conduct research related to increased use of ResearchGate?

RQ6: Are motivations to conduct research related to success metrics on ResearchGate, such as impact score, reads, followers, and citations?

Method

An online survey was conducted among members of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and the National Communication Association (NCA). A link to the Qualtrics survey was posted on the Facebook groups of various AEJMC divisions and interest groups that have such pages as well as shared via NCA’s Communication, Research, and Theory Network (CRTNET) listserv during Spring 2019. The survey was approved as “Exempt” by two university institutional review boards (IRBs). After cleaning the data for incomplete answers and filtering scholars who do not use ResearchGate, the final convenience sample size was N = 159, where 57% were women. This was considered acceptable, given the narrow nature of the population (communication scholars who use ResearchGate).

Measures

A scale measuring uses and gratifications of ResearchGate was adapted from previous social media and ResearchGate studies (Chakraborty, 2012; Quan-Haase et al., 2015). The items are listed in Table 1. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations measures were adapted from Lechuga and Lechuga (2012) and Vallerand et al. (1989). These items are listed in Table 2. Other survey questions asked about frequency of ResearchGate use, types of accounts followed, uses of the platform’s affordances, RG Score, number of reads, citations, followers and followees, as well as academic rank, gender, and age.

Table 1.

Uses and Gratifications of ResearchGate.

I use ResearchGate. . .	Factors
I use ResearchGate. . .	1	2	3	4	5
Factor 1: Information seeking
To find inspiration	.748	.153	.225	.166	.300
To learn new research tools and theories	.747	.310	.124	.022	.039
To keep up with research advances in my field	.735	.337	.127	.190	−.004
To see what other scholars are working on	.692	.118	.337	.203	.152
To discover new people	.668	.313	.198	.062	.044
To see what successful scholars are doing in terms of research	.617	.136	.271	.299	.253
*To discover new research	.572	.590	.076	.112	.073
*To curate studies for research projects I’m working on	.478	.325	.479	.055	.067
*To find motivation	.572	.007	.222	.255	.482
Factor 2: Research support
To solicit full texts from scholars	.295	.806	.071	.201	−.031
To locate full texts of studies I’m interested in	.192	.787	−.084	.265	−.003
To contact other scholars	.233	.653	.367	.008	.137
*To get answers from other scholars	.348	.599	.250	−.103	.258
Factor 3: Social interaction
To keep in touch with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances	.256	.035	.794	.056	.003
To feel part of the academic community	.367	−.023	.629	.217	.036
*To connect with scholars at other universities	.420	.350	.551	.199	.017
*To check the research portfolio of scholars I’ve met	.111	.418	.535	.428	.209
*To check the research portfolio of scholars who might be hired in my department	−.060	.376	.423	.380	.268
Factor 4: Self-esteem/self-promotion
To assess how I’m performing as a scholar	.269	.015	.089	.830	.250
To feel better about my work	.151	.170	.128	.787	.239
To share my research with others	.152	.195	.199	.602	−.303
Factor 5: Entertainment
To pass the time	.076	.052	−.031	.073	.849
To be entertained	.247	.127	.162	.137	.675
Eigenvalue	9.41	1.87	1.58	1.38	1.08
Variance explained	40.9	8.15	6.89	5.99	4.71

Items marked with an asterisk were not included in the five factors, because their primary loadings were below .60 (Stevens, 1986).

Table 2.

Communication Scholars’ Motivations for Conducting Research.

Statement: I conduct research. . .	M	SD
Intrinsic motivations factors
Because it’s exciting and intellectually stimulating	4.60	0.61
To find solutions to important societal problems	4.09	0.90
To maintain my credibility as a scholar	4.07	0.84
To learn new things	4.55	0.57
Because it’s my passion	4.28	0.89
Because I enjoy it	4.46	0.68
Because it makes me feel more accomplished and better about myself	4.04	0.85
Because I want to be one of the best scholars in my field	3.71	1.15
For the pleasure that I experience when I surpass myself	3.85	1.09
Because I want to show myself I can succeed in my career	3.62	1.06
Because I want to show myself I’m an intelligent person	2.76	1.23
For the satisfaction I get when I’m completely absorbed in scholarship	3.78	1.16
For the pleasure I feel when I discover new things	4.21	0.88
Extrinsic motivations factors
To ensure I get promoted or tenured	3.87	1.12
So I get paid better	3.13	1.23
So I don’t lose my job	2.80	1.31
So I am more marketable	3.41	1.25
To obtain a more prestigious job later	3.00	1.31
To raise my national/international reputation	3.74	1.13

Findings

Descriptive analysis found that 57% of the 157 respondents were women, and the mean age was 43.5 years (SD = 12.2), ranging from 23 to 75. In terms of rank, 42.6% were tenured educators (associate or full professors), 32.3% were assistant professors, 11% were doctoral students, and smaller numbers were master’s students (3.2%), instructors/lecturers (2.6%), postdoctoral scholars (4.5%), or professors emeriti (3.9%). Given that the survey was shared with two large communication associations, participants’ primary discipline varied from communication studies (39.4%) to journalism (32.3%), public relations (17.4%), advertising (7.1%), and other (3.8%).

RQ1 asked about frequency of ResearchGate use, which included frequency of login but also frequency of using ResearchGate-specific affordances. In terms of frequency of login, 41.4% of participants said they log into their ResearchGate account on a regular basis or a lot, 46.5% said they use it when the receive e-mail prompts from the platform, and 12.1% said they use the academic social networking site hardly ever. In terms of taking advantage of ResearchGate’s affordances, 66.8% update their account when they have a new publication often or always. About a quarter (22.6%) update their publications sometimes, 10.7% rarely, and 6.3% never. Participants were less likely to update their accounts with new conference papers, as 66% said they rarely or never do it. In terms of updating their ResearchGate account with information about ongoing projects, only 4.5% of respondents reported they do that often or always. Almost half (43.5%) upload full texts of their published articles or book chapters when they become available, while 13.6% never do it. Few participants reported updating their profile photos, bios, or research interests often or always (16.6%).

RQ2 asked about the kind of accounts followed on ResearchGate. On a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = very unlikely to 5 = very likely, participants were most likely to follow co-authors (M = 4.24, SD = 1.04), followed by scholars in one’s field (M = 4.13, SD = 1.05), former colleagues/classmates (M = 3.53, SD = 1.20), and colleagues in one’s department (M = 3.45, SD = 1.32). Respondents were less likely to follow graduate students (M = 2.88, SD = 1.39) and scholars who follow the participants but are unknown to them (M = 2.89, SD = 1.15). Descriptive analysis found that the respondents followed an average of 68.4 scholars, ranging from 0 to 534 (SD = 89.99).

Factor analysis was conducted to ascertain the uses and gratifications of ResearchGate among communication educators (Table 1). The 23 items measuring uses and gratifications were entered in a principal components factor analysis with Varimax rotation, and items were assigned to a particular factor if the primary loading was substantial, meaning greater than the .60, which guarantees stability of the obtained factor solution, regardless of the method of extraction (Stevens, 1986; Velicer & Jackson, 1990). Sixteen items loaded into five factors (Table 1), and they cumulatively explain 66.6% of the variance in why survey participants use ResearchGate. It is interesting to note that some items with loadings below .60 cross loaded between two factors. For example, “To discover new research” loaded almost equally in the information-seeking (.576) and research support (.590) dimensions. There was no cross loading among any of the 16 items with loadings greater than .60, however.

The first factor, which we named Information seeking (eigenvalue of 9.41), accounted for 40.9% of the variance and included six items as listed in Table 1 with a Cronbach’s alpha of .89. The items captured uses related to learning and discovery. The second item, named Research support (eigenvalue of 1.87), consisted of three items that accounted for 8.1% of the variance and had a Cronbach’s alpha of .81. These items captured the use of ResearchGate for the main purpose it was created—to allow for open scholarship and finding full texts of studies. The third factor captured the classic U&G concept of Social interaction (eigenvalue of 1.58) and consisted of two items that explained 6.8% of the variance and had a Cronbach’s alpha of .67. The fourth factor was named Self-esteem and Self-promotion (eigenvalue of 1.38). It consisted of three items that explained 5.9% of variance with a Cronbach’s alpha of .76. Finally, the last factor related to uses and gratifications of ResearchGate was named Entertainment (eigenvalue of 1.08). It consisted of two items that accounted for 4.7% of the variance and had a Cronbach’s alpha of .66. Because reliability analyses found high Cronbach’s alpha for all factors, new variables were created for each of the five uses and gratifications, by adding up each item within a scale and dividing the total by the number of items.

RQ3A asked about the uses and gratifications of ResearchGate among communication scholars. For the five factors identified in the factor analysis described above, the scales could range from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Mean values in descending order show that the top use of ResearchGate is research support (M = 3.19, SD = 1.13), followed by self-esteem and self-promotion needs (M = 3.14, SD = 1.02). ResearchGate also fulfilled social interaction (M = 2.93, SD = 1.04) and information-seeking needs (M = 2.84, SD = 0.98). Entertainment needs were at the very bottom of the list, with a score leaning toward the “disagree” end of the scale (M = 1.71, SD = 0.84).

To answer RQ3B, which asked about differences in uses and gratifications of ResearchGate by gender and rank, an independent-samples t test found no statistically significant differences between men and women across any of the five uses and gratifications. Likewise, analysis of variance (ANOVA) found no statistically significant differences in uses and gratifications by rank, except for the entertainment need, F(7,145) = 3.005, p = .006. Tukey post hoc pairwise comparison found that postdoctoral scholars reported the highest need for entertainment (M = 2.78, SD = 0.63), which was significantly different from assistant professors (M_difference = 1.03, SD = 0.31, p = .03), associate professors (M_difference = 1.30, SD = 0.32, p = .003), and professors (M_difference = 1.31, SD = 0.32, p = .002), all of which reported lower levels of entertainment needs. No other pairs differed significantly from each other.

To answer RQ4A and RQ4B, 19 statements measured participants’ motivations for engaging in scholarly research. Thirteen items measured intrinsic motivations for conducting research (e.g., “because it’s exciting and stimulating”). The intrinsic motivations form a reliable scale (α = .86). Six statements addressed respondents’ extrinsic motivations for doing research as part of their jobs (e.g., “to get tenure and promotion”; “to get paid better”). Reliability analysis found a Cronbach’s alpha of .74. Overall, respondents rated intrinsic motivations (M = 4.00, SD = 0.58) higher than extrinsic motivations (M = 3.32, SD = 0.81). Table 2 lists all items that formed the two scales.

RQ4B explored differences in motivations to do research by rank and gender. Independent-samples t tests found no significant differences by gender for either type of motivation, and ANOVA found differences among academic ranks only for extrinsic motivations, F(7,140) = 4.75, p = .000. Table 3 shows the levels of motivations for all ranks. Tukey post hoc pairwise comparison found that assistant professors (M = 3.6, SD = 0.71) felt a significantly larger amount of external pressure to conduct research compared with full professors (M = 2.8, SD = 0.69, p = .000), and also higher extrinsic motivations compared with professors emeriti (M = 2.5, SD = 0.93, p = .01). The only other two pairs with significant differences involved doctoral students. Just like assistant professors, they reported higher levels of extrinsic motivations (M = 3.7, SD = 0.74) compared with both full professors (p = .007) and professors emeriti (p = .02).

Table 3.

Differences in Motivations to Do Research by Rank (ANOVA).

Rank	Intrinsic motivations		Extrinsic motivations
Rank	M	SD	M	SD
Master’s student	4.07	0.32	3.46	0.50
Doctoral student	4.05	0.64	3.71_a*b	0.74
Postdoctoral scholar	4.10	0.26	3.36	0.69
Instructor/lecturer (nontenure track)	3.15	0.85	2.88	0.34
Assistant professor	4.14	0.58	3.64_c**d	0.71
Associate professor	3.90	0.52	3.32	0.85
Full professor	3.89	0.57	2.86_ac*	0.69
Professor emeritus	3.96	0.67	2.52_bd	0.93
F	1.708		4.75***

Note. Matching subscript letters indicate pairs that are significantly different from each other according to Tukey post hoc pairwise comparisons. ANOVA = analysis of variance.

***

p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05.

RQ5 asked whether there is a relationship between motivations for conducting research and frequency of use of ResearchGate. Correlation analysis found a positive correlation between intrinsic motivations for conducting research and frequency of logging into ResearchGate, r(148) = .22, p = .005. The correlation coefficient was only a bit lower for extrinsic motivations, but the relationship was also positive and statistically significant, r(148) = .20, p = .013. The survey included questions about frequency of updating one’s ResearchGate account when one has a new publication, has a new conference paper, is working on a new project, has the full text for a study, or has changes to make to the profile/biography section. Another set of bivariate correlations found that extrinsic motivations were significantly and positively correlated with researchers updating their accounts when they had a new publication, r(148) = .35, p = .000, or changes to make to their profiles, r(148) = .38, p = .000. The relationships were positive but weaker for intrinsic motivations—r(148) = .25, p = .001, for posting articles and r(148) = .23, p = .004, for updating one’s profile. None of the other types of account uses were correlated with either intrinsic or extrinsic motivations.

Finally, RQ6 asked whether there is a relationship between motivations for conducting research and success metrics on ResearchGate (RG Score, number of reads, number of citations, and number of followers). Bivariate correlations were run between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and each metric listed above. First of all, descriptive analysis found that this was a relatively popular and successful sample of ResearchGate users, with an average number of 88.9 followers (SD = 99) and an average RG Score of 11.15 (SD = 8.08). Analysis found that intrinsic motivations were significantly correlated only with number of followers, r(126) = .17, p = .04. The relationship was positive but weak. On the contrary, extrinsic motivations were significantly negatively correlated with number of reads, r(126) = −.19, p = .02, and number of citations, r(126) = −.24, p = .005, and marginally negatively correlated with RG Score, r(126) = −.15, p = .08. In addition, we asked respondents about their perceptions of the RG Score as a measure of one’s research impact. Only 15.9% agreed that the score is an accurate research-impact metric, 24.8% agreed that it is important to one’s academic reputation, and only 8.3% agreed that it is important for one’s tenure and promotion prospects. On the contrary, 63.1% said they are likely or very likely to recommend ResearchGate to graduate students or other faculty.

Discussion

This study set out to examine the extent to which communication scholars use ResearchGate, their main uses and gratifications of the social networking site, and the relationship between their motivations to conduct research and their success on the platform. The analysis found that communication scholars who use ResearchGate like the platform and recommend it to junior faculty and graduate students. Participants had fairly sizable networks on the platform, having an average of 89 followers and following an average of 68 scholars, most of whom were collaborators or other researchers in their field. The participants also had fairly robust RG scores, with an average of 11.8. However, communication scholars did not perceive the RG Score to be an accurate metric of one’s research impact. This is in line with findings from Orduna-Malea et al. (2017), whose analysis revealed that the RG Score depends more on users’ engagement in Q&A sessions rather than on their publication record and hence should not be used as accurate indicators for academic reputation.

Less than 5% of the participants said they update their profiles with ongoing projects, which is a ResearchGate affordance that not only could help them find collaborators or opportunities in journal special issues, but is also one of the main ways to increase their RG Score. For one of the open-ended questions of the survey, a participant provided another reason for sharing ongoing projects: “To prevent plagiarism of work that is under review but not published, as RG provides an official record.”

The top use of ResearchGate is research support, which is in line with the platform’s stated objective to provide researchers access to other people’s work and fulfills the promise of academic social media networks. Self-esteem and self-promotion needs came in second, indicating that ResearchGate is being used as a strategic tool to enhance one’s academic reputation. ResearchGate also fulfilled more traditional uses and gratifications of social media, such as social interaction and information-seeking needs, but these were weaker than the previous two. Only postdoctoral students leaned toward agreeing that ResearchGate also fulfilled an entertainment need, in contrast to tenured and tenure-track faculty, who were considerably less likely to use the platform for amusement. While the pressures of the tenure track might explain the findings for the latter, it is perhaps the fact that scientific training (with no teaching and service expectations) is the core of postdoctoral education that makes the former derive fun from spending time on an academic social platform. From a U&G perspective, ResearchGate stands out from other social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook because of the prominence of the self-esteem and self-promotion uses, which Shao (2009) categorized as self-actualization or impression management gratifications. Consumption uses, such as information seeking and entertainment, dominate most user-generated media, but content creation (listing one’s works and projects) appears to be the focus of ResearchGate. Content production is the lifeblood of social media, and it is possible that only academics who actually have something to share (this is reflected in the high-average RG Score) are actually on the platform. Fewer scholars are using the platform just to “lurk” or follow others, as common on other social networking sites, most likely because the platform is used as a metric of one’s research impact. In answers to the open-ended U&G question, reputation management was mentioned is several comments (“I use it for two primary reasons: (1) boost my citation count and (2) manage my public image”; “To increase exposure to my published work”; “To promote my work. To give curious students a hit other than RateMyProfessor if they Google me”; “To put my work out there so that others will cite it, raising my citation count”; “I want people to be able to find my work so they can possibly cite it”; “It may be vain, but I like seeing that people have downloaded my work, especially international folks”; “I like seeing where I rank each week in terms of my department and university”). Such comments suggest that ResearchGate as a social network can enhance self-promotion and the curation of a scholarly “brand” online.

The analysis found some correlations between scholars’ motivations to conduct research and their behaviors or popularity on ResearchGate. First of all, as a whole, the sample at hand had higher intrinsic motivations than extrinsic motivations to engage in scholarship. Doctoral students and assistant professors stood out as the groups who felt the strongest external pressures to conduct research. This has important implications because extrinsic motivations were found to negatively impact reads and citations. It is as if readers can tell when research is produced by scholars driven by passion or pure enjoyment. Indeed, intrinsic motivations were correlated with an increased number of followers and marginally correlated with an increased RG score. This finding supports data from previous SDT studies (Curtin et al., 2018; Zaharie & Osoian, 2016) that found that extrinsic rewards are more important for early-career scholars than for tenured scholars.

Locating the full text of studies or soliciting full texts from other scholars was ranked pretty high by the participants in this study. This issue of increasing access to research may be especially important to international scholars who may not have the same opportunities to download published articles at their home institutions. This was supported by the comments provided in the open-ended question about uses and gratifications of ResearchGate that may have not been listed in the questionnaire. Participants brought up issues of open scholarship in a globalized world: “I use ResearchGate primarily to respond to scholars from other countries that have fewer resources who request my work”; “We have limited library databases which don’t include EBSCO Communication and Mass media Complete.”

In addition, some respondents saw ResearchGate as a free and easy-to-access research resource for their students (“I look for articles to assist my students in my undergraduate classes in writing research papers, one of the major ways to communicate in our discipline”) and also in a mediated world (“I use ResearchGate for me and my research to be more easily found by professionals and journalists to improve its potential impact”). Some mentioned personal convenience (“To store copies of my research publications so others can get them without me having to e-mail them when requested”), while others reported curiosity (“To satisfy curiosity when a post seems interesting”; “Curiosity on what it was all about”).

Clearly, this study focused on only one academic social media platform and one discipline, namely, communication. Future studies could examine uses of other academic social networking sites such as Academia.edu and compare the motivations for use among scholars from different fields to identify any field-specific patterns. Also, this study did not measure middle-ground motivations from the SDT literature, such as introjected or internalized motivations. Future studies could use a more nuanced scale to examine the role of factors such as guilt or anxiety as predictors of faculty conducting research and using academic social networking sites.

Conclusion

The findings of this study show that ResearchGate has become a commonly used tool for communication scholars, but academics, while having an a fairly high RG score on average, cautioned against using the RG Score as an accurate metric of one’s research impact. The platform’s primary perceived value lies in support for research, reputation management, and the facilitation of information-seeking behaviors and providing full-text access to research publications. This has important implications not only for “globalizing” the research impact of individual scholars but also for the way tenure and promotion committees track and measure scholarly impact.

Supporting previous SDT literature, doctoral students and pretenure faculty were more likely to conduct research for external incentives, which in turn translated in lower reads and citations, two of the platform’s metrics of popularity. The publish-or-perish mentality prevalent in academia might lead early-career scholars to pursue research endeavors out of professional obligation rather than for intrinsic rewards, which in turn, as previous SDT studies show, leads to decreased success and career satisfaction. Some universities around the world are offering extra funding to scholars who publish (McGrail et al., 2006), which only adds extrinsic incentives. More research is needed on factors affecting faculty intrinsic motivations to conduct research, as these are traditional motivations that stem from the centrality of knowledge creation and dissemination in the field of higher education.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Raluca Cozma (PhD in Media and Public Affairs, Louisiana State University, 2009) is an associate professor of journalism and associate director for Graduate Studies and Research in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. Cozma’s research examines social media, foreign correspondence, and political communication.

Daniela Dimitrova (PhD in Mass Communication, University of Florida, 2003) is a professor of journalism in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. Dimitrova is the editor-in-chief of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and her research examines political communication, media effects, media framing, and information and communication technologies.

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