Generality of Media Attention as a Mechanism for Post-Publication Correction

Determine whether news media and social media attention generally serve as a mechanism for post-publication correction of the scientific record, rather than reflecting only exceptional high-profile cases.

Background

The paper notes instances where flawed articles were retracted following public discussion in news and social media, but highlights uncertainty about whether these are atypical cases or indicative of a broader corrective mechanism.

To address this uncertainty, the paper analyzes Altmetric mentions (news, blogs, and X) for 15,461 retracted articles and compares retraction time lags and post-retraction citation changes between highly mentioned and non-mentioned articles using coarsened exact matching and zero-inflated negative binomial models.