Exploring altmetrics in an emerging country context

The study of altmetrics is relatively new, and the little that is known about altmetrics is only known for journals and articles from a limited set of contexts (publication venues and subject areas). The use of PLOS, arXiv.org, PubMed, Web of Science, or of a few well-established journals like Nature and Science introduces a selection bias that calls into question the generalizability of reported results. For example, we already know that altmetrics related to mentions in blogs are heavily influenced by the makeup of bloggers themselves and the journals they tend to blog about, both of which introduce a strong bias in favour high-impact life science journals (Shema et al., 2012). There is therefore a need to study the altmetrics of journals and articles published and read in other contexts, including research that is published and read in regions of the world beyond the global North, as well as in other languages beyond English.