The Democratization of Scientific Conferences: Twitter in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond

Rahul Banerjee, Amar H Kelkar, Aaron C Logan, Navneet S Majhail, Naveen Pemmaraju
2021 Current Hematologic Malignancy Reports  
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had profound impacts upon scientific discourse in our field, most prominently through the abrupt transition of malignant hematology conferences to all-digital formats. These virtual components will likely be incorporated into future iterations of these conferences even as in-person attendance is reincorporated. In this review, we discuss ways in which usage of the social networking platform Twitter has expanded in the past year during virtual
more » ... conferences as a method to facilitate-and, in some ways, democratize-information flow and professional networking. Emerging Twitter-based tools in malignant hematology include presenter-developed #tweetorials, conference-specific "poster walks," and disease-specific online journal clubs. Twitter is also increasingly being used for networking across institutional and international lines, allowing for conversations to continue year-round as a first step toward multicenter collaborations as well as in-person #tweetups at subsequent meetings. The ability of Twitter to enable uninterrupted information exchange has reinforced its central role in medical and scientific communication in a way that will certainly outlive the COVID-19 pandemic.
doi:10.1007/s11899-021-00620-w pmid:33788125 fatcat:ak2pliip6zbr5kcow22qej4234