From Engineers' Tweets: Text Mining Social Media for Perspectives on Engineering Communication

摘要

This study combines text mining and content analysis to examine social media content from the top 20 engineers on Twitter, as well as frequent engineering communication topics on Quora and Reddit, to explore the following: (1) What are important communication skills on social media? (2) What rhetorical strategies do they use communicate information on social media, given the media’s limitations? (3) What topics do engineers most commonly use to engage the public? (4) What topics are associated with “reach” (or distribution and reception of messages) on social media? Findings suggest that appeals and topics that engineers use on social media index personal, technical and professional themes, from technology info and link citations to art, culture, politics, and other modes. Social media blur public, private, and professional spheres of exchange. Public engagement creates heterogeneous networks of topics of interest and practice with diverse vectors of engagement. Interactions between soft skills such as reading, writing, listening and speaking characterize engineering’s multidisciplinary workplaces. Additional important domains (e.g., communication environments, visuals literacy, and interpersonal ethos) emerged. Recommendations for practice and teaching include extending coverage of topics in engineering communication education, providing workplace training on social media, and revising communication policies on the job.