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A scientometric analysis of social media research (2004–2011)

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Abstract

To better understand the rapidly growing social media research domain, this study presents the findings of a scientometric analysis of the corresponding literature. We conducted a research productivity analysis and citation analysis of individuals, institutions, and countries based on 610 peer-reviewed social media articles published in journals and conference proceedings between October 2004 and December 2011. Results indicate that research productivity is exploding and that several leading authors, institutions, countries, and a small set of foundational papers have emerged. Based on the results—indicating that the social media domain displays limited diversity and is still heavily influenced by practitioners—the paper raises two fundamental challenges facing the social media domain and its future advancement, namely the lack of academic maturity and the Matthew Effect.

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Notes

  1. ProQuest Direct is a collection of all 98 databases, including ABI/Inform, and deals with seven subject domains, including Business.

  2. This early use of the term was due to the context of the cited study, i.e. Trow (1941) referred to the classroom as a ‘social medium’.

  3. The initial search resulted in 1516 articles, of which 466 articles were duplicates. Therefore the 1050 unique scholarly articles is the total count after removing the duplicate articles from our data set.

  4. We had access to the e-resources of three large University libraries.

  5. The JCMC acceptance rate is reported as 2.4 % (source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-6101/homepage/ForAuthors.html Retrieved on October 13, 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Media and Information, Advertising and Public Relations, Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting, Michigan State University, 404 Wilson Road, 414 College of Communication Arts and Sciences, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Constantinos K. Coursaris

  2. Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University, 404 Wilson Road, 436 College of Communication Arts and Sciences, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Wietske Van Osch

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  1. Constantinos K. Coursaris
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  2. Wietske Van Osch
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Correspondence to Constantinos K. Coursaris.

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Coursaris, C.K., Van Osch, W. A scientometric analysis of social media research (2004–2011). Scientometrics 101, 357–380 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1399-z

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