While several case studies have shown positive correlations between research publications' presence in press releases or news media and their citation impact, the effects explaining these associations remain uncertain. The study presented on this poster tests two frequently hypothesized effects – the earmark and the publicity effect – by investigating whether publications selected for press releases have a citation advantage compared to similar publications without press release, even if none of the publications did receive substantial press coverage, thus could not have benefited from a meaningful publicity advantage. Results from our statistical analysis of a comprehensive dataset of publications, press releases, citations, and altmetrics support the significance of the publicity effect, while providing no evidence to support any earmark effect.
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Steffen Lemke (2024) studied this question.
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