The impact and outreach of soundscape research

Abstract

Soundscape has been growing steadily as a research field since its interdisciplinary concepts were first introduced about 50 years ago in music theory and acoustic ecology, and it currently affects a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from social sciences to urban planning and noise control engineering. In spite of its strong research appeal, it is not clear what the actual impact and outreach of soundscape science is at a societal level; that is: how soundscape research is received by community. Using the Altmetric database, this review aims to map how and where soundscape research is “mentioned”, considering the number of mentions over time, their geographical spread and effectiveness of publication outlets. Results show that mentions are growing with time, they mostly originate in the United States and the United Kingdom, and they are generated by a limited number of research items.