Social Media Research: A Review of Academic Research and Future Research Directions

Abstract

Research into social media has proliferated significantly over the last few years. However, the majority of papers published in this domain lack rigorous theoretical underpinning. This paper provides a report on a systematic literature search of social media research papers in major Information Systems (IS) outlets including journals and conferences from January 2009 to January 2013. The survey of literature indicates that there is a continuous increase in the number of social media research articles published over the last few years. Furthermore, we found that the majority of papers were data driven and not theory driven and a greater number of papers were published in conferences than in journals. In summary, we suggest that research into social media has been emerging over a period of time and there are numerous opportunities for researchers to conduct rigorous studies in this area. Moreover, it is anticipated that the review presented in this paper will be a good resource for future research into social media and will stimulate further interest in this area.