The Valuation of Online Science Communication: A Study Into the Scholarly Discourses of Altmetrics and Their Reception

Abstract

Online communication has gained momentum in science. In light of this momentum new forms of quantification have emerged, so-called alternative metrics. What these new metrics signify is still considered unclear and issue of on-going debate. Building upon theories from the sociology of valuation and genre theory, this paper analyzes the discourses embedded in a corpus of over 400 articles from the scientometric community on these new metrics. The results suggest two grand narratives, “societal impact” and “research performance”, in this discourse that both may lead to orthogonal performative effects in stabilizing either established or new valuation regimes.