Kim Kardashian
Kimberly Noel Kardashian (formerly West; born October 21, 1980) is an American socialite, media personality, and businesswoman. She first gained media attention as a friend and stylist of Paris Hilton, but received wider notice after the sex ...
, is a satirical measure of the discrepancy between a scientist's
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
profile and
publication
To publish is to make content available to the general public.Berne Conve ...
record. Proposed by Neil Hall in 2014, the measure compares the number of followers a
research scientist
A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...
has on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
to the number of
citation
A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...
s they have for their
peer-review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
ed work.
Definition
The relationship between the expected number of Twitter followers given the number of citations is described as
which is derived from the Twitter accounts and citation counts of a "randomish selection of 40 scientists" in 2014. The Kardashian Index is thus calculated as
where is the actual number of Twitter followers of researcher , and is the number that researcher should have, given their citations.
Interpretation
A high K-index indicates an over-blown scientific fame, while a low K-index suggests that a scientist is being undervalued. According to the author Hall, researchers whose K-index > 5 can be considered "Science Kardashians". Hall wrote:
Hall also added "a serious note" noticing the gender disparity in his sample. Of 14 female scientists, 11 had lower than predicted K-indices, while only one of the high-index scientists was female.
On February 11, 2022, on Twitter, Neil Hall stated that he intended the Kardashian Index to be a “dig at metrics not Kardashians” and that “the entire premise is satire”.
Response
Many jocular indices of scientific productivity were proposed in the immediate aftermath of publication of the K-Index paper. The Tesla Index measured social isolation of scientists relative to their productivity, named after
John Ioannidis
John P. A. Ioannidis (; el, Ιωάννης Ιωαννίδης, ; born August 21, 1965) is a Greek-American physician-scientist, writer and Stanford University professor who has made contributions to evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and cl ...
authored a paper in ''The BMJ'' arguing that signatories of the
Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration was an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. It claimed harmful COVID-19 lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection", by which th ...
about how to deal with the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
were shunned as a fringe minority by those in favor of the John Snow Memorandum. According to him, the latter used their large numbers of followers on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
and other
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
and
op-ed
An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
s to shape a scientific "
groupthink
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness ...
" against the former, who had less influence.
The version of the index that Ioannidis used used
Scopus
Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
citations instead of Google Scholar citations, since many of the signatories had no Google Scholar pages.
The K-index suggests that the number of citations of a given scientist is comparable to their scientific value. This assumption has been criticized.
The proposal of the K-Index has been interpreted as a criticism to the assumption that scientists should have a social media impact at all, while in reality, social media footprint has no correlation to the scientific quality or scientific impact.
See also
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Academic authorship
Academic authorship of journal articles, books, and other original works is a means by which academics communicate the results of their scholarly work, establish priority for their discoveries, and build their reputation among their peers.
Auth ...
*
Attention inequality
Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...
*
Famous for being famous
''Famous for being famous'' is a term for someone who attains celebrity status for no clearly identifiable reason (as opposed to fame based on achievement, skill, or talent) and appears to generate their own fame, or someone who achieves fame thr ...
References
Bibliography
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* {{cite news , last=Steinbauer , first=Von Anna , date=2014-09-22 , title="Kardashian"-Index in der Wissenschaft , url=http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/kardashian-index-in-der-wissenschaft-risiken-des-ruhms-1.2139035 , newspaper=
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat.
History ...