Lindroos Cermakova, Anna and Gillen, Julia (2026) Universities as expert influencers in primary literacy education research : A study of public discourses in UK newspapers and Twitter. Journal of Further and Higher Education. ISSN 0309-877X
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Universities are operating in a challenging and somewhat paradoxical situation in the domain of early childhood literacy education. Against a background of the very limited visibility of university research in the formulation of new policies and practices, there is a great deal of public discourse to which university researchers have contributed. Utilizing corpus linguistics methods, the study explores two datasets collected in 2017-2022 from UK newspapers and Twitter, highlighting how university expertise is operationalised in these two types of public discourses on primary literacy. Findings show that while universities are referenced as key sources of expertise in both domains, their representation differs. Newspaper media frequently name specific universities as sources of research and authority, with some universities being cited relatively frequently. Selection and representation emerge from perceived alignments to the newspapers’ own news values and audiences. In Twitter social media interactions, universities play a broader role, with more involvement from overseas HEIs, and a broader range of content and style. There is a separation between academia and practitioners, suggesting limited influence and reach of academic Twitter. Highly effective academic institutional accounts communicate through varied strategies, sometimes heavily reliant on specific academic influencers. Our findings imply that there are opportunities for individuals, in universities or as alumni, and universities as a whole, to devise effective communication strategies in the domain of primary literacy education research, paying attention to both professional news and social media. This is likely to apply to other areas of university expertise.