Alice Fleerackers (she/her)

Only a week to go before our webinar on "watchdog science journalism"! Will we see you there?

Come join us for a discussion of how science journalists can act as watchdogs of the research sphere!

#scicomm #journalism

Such a pleasure to speak with INCT-CPCT about our recent research on how science journalists navigate predatory publishing

study w/ @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca & @lauramoorhead.bsky.social available here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Resilience in times of crisis: Strengthening Open Science against geopolitical pressures The success of the Open Science movement relies on research products and infrastructures being open, accessible and sustainably curated. Recent global events, however, have illustrated the vulnerabili...

🗣️Join our colleagues @loubezuidenhout.bsky.social & @kathleen-gregory.bsky.social for an 'unconferenced style' workshop on strengthening #OpenScience against geopolitical pressures.

📅Thursday 6 November 2025 09:00-18:30 (CET)
📌Leiden NL (in person only)

👉 www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20...

Great opportunity to work with a vibrant and international team, and to make a difference for #openscience and public knowledge.

Story by the wonderful @naseemmiller.bsky.social , research by the wonderful @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca and @lauramoorhead.bsky.social

Study sheds light on journalists’ knowledge of predatory journals - The Journalist's Resource In-depth interviews with health and science journalists reveal that most believed predatory journals are a problem for their peers, or a problem in theory, but not a problem they would ever fall for t...

Curious about our new study on journalists and predatory publishing, but don't want to read a 15 page academic paper?

@journoresource.bsky.social just wrote a great little summary and what the findings mean for #scolcomm, #openscience & journalism

journalistsresource.org/home/study-s...

Poster advertising "Pub Talk," including illustration of a face and a bunch of digital devices and phones and details of the event: Speakers: Prof Mark Deuze, Dr Alice Fleerackers, Dr Toni Pape When/where: Sep 30, 16:30-18:30, Vox-Pop

If you're in Amsterdam and interested in digital media (or just want to leave your house on Monday), come say hi at this FREE event.

@markdeuze.bsky.social , Toni Pape & I will be talking about the weird and sometimes wonderful nature of living life online.

voxpop.uva.nl/en/content/e...

🐕 🐕 🐕 REMINDER 🐕 🐕 🐕

The deadline to submit an abstract to our special issue on "Journalism as a Science Watchdog" is just a couple of weeks away (October 15).

We are really looking forward to reading your submissions!

Interested in researching how journalists experience and grapple with emotions? And how nature retreats might help them better manage the impacts of covering evolving crises?

Come work at the @uvahumanities.bsky.social with the wonderful @johana.bsky.social 👇👇👇

I would love to see more research on this topic!

Reflecting on this thread, I am laughing at the extreme irony of the glaring capitalization error in the title of our paper 😂

Definitely a sign our research is not to be trusted.

“i’d Like to Think I’d be Able to Spot one”: How Journalists Navigate Predatory Journals Predatory journals—or journals that prioritize profits over editorial and publication best practices—are becoming more common, raising concerns about the integrity of the scholarly record. Such jou...

Read the whole study, co-authored by the wonderful @lauramoorhead.bsky.social and @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca here:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Curious to hear your thoughts!

#scicomm #journalism #openscience

The findings are also problematic from a diversity perspective, as they suggest research from smaller, lesser-known, OA journals, and published by researchers whose first language is not English, may remain hidden from public view.

The findings are concerning, because some of these strategies are unlikely to help journalists weed out problematic research.

(See @eve.gd & @ernestopriego.com's great paper on the problems of judging the "container" research is published in: www.triple-c.at/index.php/tr...)

Beyond the reputation and impact factor of a journal, some journalists saw typos/grammar mistakes were "red flags."

Others equated #openaccess with predatory, expressing suspicion about any journal that was free to read.

Quote from journalist: "I vet research largely by the publication that it's in. So, if it's in a weird publication, I sort of don't know whether to trust it or not. I usually don't, because...I'm like, well it would be in a better publication if it were trustworthy."

That gut feeling hinged largely on markers of prestige, impact, and familiarity.

Some journalists, like this one, said they would never report on research from an unfamiliar journal:

Many journalists were unaware of these journals.

Others knew about them but were unconcerned: The journals were a problem in theory, or for their colleagues, but not a problem for them.

With years of experience, they said they had developed a "gut instinct" for telling "good" from "bad" journals.

In the study, we interviewed 23 science, health, and environmental journalists from Europe and North America.

We asked about their perceptions of predatory journals, and what strategies they used to decide if a journal is trustworthy.

“Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List” is an actual science paper accepted by a journal Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters expl...

Predatory journals prioritize profit over editorial and publishing best practices.

For example, some have no real peer review process, and publish more or less anything authors submit.

(Read about a hilarious example here: www.vox.com/2014/11/21/7...)

Screenshot of journal article titled "I'd like to think I'd be able to spot one": How journalists navigate predatory journals Authors: Alice Fleerackers, Laura Moorhead, Juan Pablo Alperin

Have you ever heard of predatory journals?

Our new study—published this week in Journalism Practice—suggests many science journalists haven't.

When they were familiar with predatory journals, most said they weren't worried, confident they'd "be able to spot one if they saw one."

Details in 🧵👇

Grateful to see our work on Watchdog Science Journalism featured in @epstoa.bsky.social

Reminder if you're a researcher interested in this space, our special issue for Media and Communication is accepting submissions till October 1!

www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcomm...

Exactly.

Amplifying the News: An Analysis of the Factors Driving Republication and Facebook Engagement with News This study examines the factors that influence republishing, sharing, and engagement with news in a digital media environment. It does so using a sample of 69 stories about climate emergency prepar...

Huge thanks to my wonderful, interdisciplinary, international team: @inesengelmann.bsky.social @riedlinm.bsky.social @kimosman.bsky.social ‪@voddenlaura.bsky.social‬ @kathaesa.bsky.social Arjun Srinivas & @snurb.info

Read the full article (OA) here: doi.org/10.1080/1751...

#scicomm #envirocomm

But they do not bode well for the future of local (climate) news outlets, who rely heavily on republishing The Conversation stories... but almost never receive any Facebook attention.

The findings are encouraging from a constructive journalism perspective, as positive stories sharing systemic solutions supporting climate emergency preparedness tended to gain lots of traction.

We looked at stories published by The Conversation, which are made available under a Creative Commons license—easily allowing other media outlets to republish them.

(PS. If you are nerdy about methods, you will enjoy this study: tracing these amplification pathways was incredibly involved...)

Overview of pathways through which media stories published by The Conversation (TC) are amplified in a digital media landscape: Pathway A: TC stories are posted to Facebook B) those posts are engaged with by Facebook users C) TC stories are republished by other media outlets D) those republished stories are posted to Facebook E) those posts sharing republished stories are engaged with by Facebook users.

We also look at the qualities of those republishing outlets (e.g., Are they local, national, or international? Legacy journalism or nontraditional?) that predict whether republished versions of a story get amplified on Facebook.

Screenshot of journal article titled Amplifying the News: An Analysis of the Factors Driving Republication and Facebook Engagement with News.

New study — out today in Journalism Practice!

In it, we analyze the qualities of a news story (about climate-related emergencies) that predict whether/how much it is shared/engaged with on Facebook and republished by other media outlets.

All of this underscores the point above: if we want to truly make research open, and avoid public misunderstanding—we need to actually consider the public (and the journalists who share research with them) in our approach to #openscience, preprints and otherwise.