Title
Mapping the landscape of Internet Studies: Text mining of social science journal articles 2000-2009.
Abstract
What does Internet studies' entail as a field of social science research? We aim to answer the question by mapping research themes, theorization, and methodology of Internet studies based on 27,000+ articles published in Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index journals over the last 10 years. In analyzing the articles, we adopt a bottom-up' approach - classifying keywords of the Internet studies without any a priori categorization - to identify the boundaries, major divisions, and basic elements of the field talis qualis. The research strategy results in a number of expected, as well as surprising, patterns and trends. Internet studies have evolved into a viable field that has witnessed a booming decade. The field is clustered around four primary research themes: e-Health, e-Business, e-Society, and Human-Technology Interactions. Two or three sub-themes with different research foci and methodologies emerge within each theme. The evolution of popular keywords in each sub-theme further shows that the field has become more concerned with intricate relationships between Internet use and specific behaviors/attitudes/effects; Internet usage patterns have increasingly attracted research attention; and network perspectives and approaches have become popular. Internet studies in the past decade have been modestly theorized. Established research methods (e.g., survey, experiment, and content analysis) still prevail in the Internet studies reviewed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1177/1461444812462846
NEW MEDIA & SOCIETY
Keywords
Field
DocType
e-business,e-health,e-society,Human-Technology Interactions (HTIs),research themes
Data science,Social science,Categorization,Electronic business,Primary research,Sociology,Citation index,Social Sciences Citation Index,Internet studies,The arts,The Internet
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
15.0
SP5
1461-4448
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
11
0.73
24
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Tai-Quan Peng1747.82
Lun Zhang2352.25
Zhi-Jin Zhong3592.94
Jonathan Jh Zhu4251.32