Keyword analysis in communication for development and social change: The case of #comunicambio on twitter

Abstract

Communication for development and social change (c4d) has experienced in recent years an increase in its importance in the field of communication. However, we lack the indicators that allow us to objectively identify the presence of the c4d in the research on communication in Spain. Faced with this situation, this paper pursues two objectives. On the one hand, it tries to determine the thematic indicators that characterize the discourses on Twitter on cdcs and, on the other hand, it tries to reveal the thematic differences between these discourses and the academic discourse on c4d in Spain. To achieve these objectives, we have made a content analysis based on keywords from a corpus of tweets issued with the hashtag #comunicambio, and then we compared these results with the keywords of a corpus of scientific articles on c4d published in the main Spanish communication journals. The results show that, although there are many topics shared between the two corpora, the divergences are also of great importance and it is necessary that we consider including among the thematic indicators of the discipline the concerns, values and principles that are poured into both discourses.