The alleged citation advantage of video abstracts may be a matter of self-citations and self-selection bias : comment on “The impact of video abstract on citation counts” by Zong et al

The paper authored by Zong et al. (Scientometrics, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03108-w) claims that equipping articles with a video abstract provides them a citation advantage. Here I argue that the study above does not consider two potential confounding factors, namely, the role played by self-citations as well as by the self-selection bias. Author self-citations push the citation premium of the articles analyzed in the study referenced above, thus the net effect of video abstracts is lower than expected. What is more, articles with a video abstract seem to associate with higher citations in comparison to their counterparts without the video companion due to the self-selection bias. Namely, authors may be prone to include a video abstract in the articles they believe are of outstanding quality and best representative of their research activities. All this suggests that the alleged citation advantage of video abstracts is, at least, of doubtful occurrence.