Overall and COVID-19-specific citation impact of highly visible COVID-19 media experts: bibliometric analysis.
BMJ Open
; 11(10): e052856, 2021 10 27.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1495468
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To evaluate whether the COVID-19 experts who appear most frequently in media have high citation impact for their research overall, and for their COVID-19 peer-reviewed publications in particular and to examine the representation of women among such experts.DESIGN:
Cross-linking of data sets of most highly visible COVID-19 media experts with citation data on the impact of their published work (career-long publication record and COVID-19-specific work).SETTING:
Cable news appearance in prime-time programming or overall media appearances.PARTICIPANTS:
Most highly visible COVID-19 media experts in the USA, Switzerland, Greece and Denmark.INTERVENTIONS:
None. OUTCOMEMEASURES:
Citation data from Scopus along with discipline-specific ranks of overall career-long and COVID-19-specific impact based on a previously validated composite citation indicator.RESULTS:
We assessed 76 COVID-19 experts who were highly visible in US prime-time cable news, and 50, 12 and 2 highly visible experts in media in Denmark, Greece and Switzerland, respectively. Of those, 23/76, 10/50, 2/12 and 0/2 were among the top 2% of overall citation impact among scientists in the same discipline worldwide. Moreover, 37/76, 15/50, 7/12 and 2/2 had published anything on COVID-19 that was indexed in Scopus as of 30 August 2021. Only 18/76, 6/50, 2/12 and 0/2 of the highly visible COVID-19 media experts were women. 55 scientists in the USA, 5 in Denmark, 64 in Greece and 56 in Switzerland had a higher citation impact for their COVID-19 work than any of the evaluated highly visible media COVID-19 experts in the respective country; 10/55, 2/5, 22/64 and 14/56 of them were women.CONCLUSIONS:
Despite notable exceptions, there is a worrisome disconnect between COVID-19 claimed media expertise and scholarship. Highly cited women COVID-19 experts are rarely included among highly visible media experts.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
BMJ Open
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bmjopen-2021-052856
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