Trends in academic articles on ICTs and social web in the 2013-2017 period

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the way in which ICTs and the social web, main agents of the current digital society, have been studied in academic articles. The goal is, therefore, to make a balance of the research published in the Spanish and Latin American journals with the greatest impact, indexed in Scimago Journal & Country Rank in the category of Communication, during the five-year period 2013-2017. To do this, we methodologically triangulated bibliometric research and content analysis, which allowed to consider aspects such as the authorship or the articles' funding, as well as to identify the objects of study, theories, and the most used methodologies in the 425 manuscripts of the sample. In light of the results, it is possible to state that scientific production experiments permanent growth throughout the time series analyzed. The modal pattern of the works' authorship, which usually lacks additional funding, is up to three authors, something that denotes the collaborative nature of this investigation. From an instrumental point of view, the studies are mostly empiricalandcenteredon the analysis ofmessages. Finally, regarding the comparison between the manuscripts included in the Spanish and Latin American journals, there are significant differences in terms of parameters such as the impact factor, the use of quantitative or qualitative methods, andthe epistemological paradigms in which the articles are included.