From Academia to Social Media

Pangean, "ResearchGate logotype old" via commons.wikimedia.com, 03/09/2011
Public Domain Dedication License

The majority of the authors in Applied Geography are older researcher and professors who are quite unlikely to have social media accounts, even on LinkedIn and Wordpress. There are a few younger authors, but even then they are from foreign countries, such as Amsterdam and Switzerland and were not on American social media. Such is the case with one of the authors, Julie G. Zaehringer.

What is she on?

• I was unable to find Zaehringer, who is a younger person, on any social media common to the younger generation, such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. However, I continued to research her and found her on a site called Research Gate, which provided information on her and her accomplishments.

Who is she?

• Research Gate presents her as a professional and as a great researcher. It holds all of her recent publications as well as provides information on her academic and professional career. The site also rates her based on her publications and interactions with other researchers. Overall, this site is definitely for professional networking and presenting research to collegues.

Who is she really?

• Her online identity matches perfectly with the personality that she presented in her research paper, professional and intelligent. I do not see any discrepancies within the two. I think she truly wants to be seen as a professional and refrains from using social media that could say otherwise.