Recognising the Scholar-Creator: Social Media Science Communication as Scholarly Labour

Abstract

Social media platforms have become important sites of science communication, with individual scholars increasingly creating content to engage public audiences with scientific knowledge. However, academic institutions have largely neglected to regard such science communication work through content creation as legitimate scholarly labour, instead continuing to focus primarily on the scholar as a producer of scientific knowledge. This commentary introduces the figure of the ‘scholar-creator’: scholars who use social media to translate, contextualise, and narrate scientific knowledge. It argues that scholar-creators should be formally recognised and supported, as they perform crucial work in making scientific knowledge matter outside the academy.