Blog mentions

What it is

Blog mentions are references to a scholarly work in blog posts. The metric is the total count of these events based on the blogs tracked by the metric aggregator.

How it works

Metric aggregators generally track mentions of scholarly works in scientific and general interest blogs by looking for references to various identifiers (e.g., URLs, DOIs, PMIDs, etc.) from a specific set of source blogs. The aggregated count can indicate that individual researchers or organizations, such as scientific societies, are disseminating or informally discussing a work.

What to keep in mind

  • Blog mentions can be useful for learning about if and how a scholarly work is being discussed. However, the count of blog mentions does not capture the nature of a discussion. Thus, the ability to access and read the blog mentions is essential.
  • The blog sources and individual mentions tracked by altmetric aggregators differ significantly and are not always transparent. To address this issue, it can be productive to utilize data from multiple metric sources (1).
  • For metric purposes, blog mentions are considered distinct from microblogging mentions, such as those on platforms like X (formerly Twitter).
  • Several studies have found that most scholarly works are not mentioned in blogs (1,2).
  • Blogs in the English language, primarily from English-speaking countries, along with specialized blogs, are tracked more frequently than general interest outlets (3).

Learn more

How do Altmetric track attention to blogs?
PlumX mentions metrics and sources
Crossref Event data overview and sources

Altmetric Attention Score
News Mentions

References

  1. Ortega, J. L. (2019). The coverage of blogs and news in the three major altmetric data providers. Paper presented at the 17th International Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, Rome, Italy. https://osf.io/8xqjn
  2. Bornmann, L. (2014). Validity of altmetrics data for measuring societal impact: A study using data from Altmetric and F1000Prime. Journal of Informetrics, 8(4), 935–950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2014.09.007
  3. Ortega, José Luis. “How Do Media Mention Research Papers? Structural Analysis of Blogs and News Networks Using Citation Coupling.” Journal of Informetrics 15, no. 3 (August 1, 2021): 101175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2021.101175.

Last updated January 2024