the changing research landscape of our field: a topic model of 80 years in communication science...

The Changing Research Landscape of Our Field: A Topic Model of 80 Years in Communication Science Journals

66th Annual ICA Conference in Fukuoka, Japan, 9-13 June 2016

Elisabeth Günther & Emese Domahidi

ICA 2016 | Elisabeth Günther & Emese Domahidi | WWU Münster & IWM Tübingen, Germany

(Not Really) New Developments in Communication Research?

• Quantity and Interdisciplinarity ‣ Ever-growing body of publications makes it difficult to maintain an overview of the ongoing

research (Hanitzsch, 2014; Schramm, 1983). ‣ … which begs the question of the boundaries of our field (Leydesdorff & Probst, 2009).

• New Media ‣ CMC might be one of the main driving factors for a qualitative and quantitative change for

empirical communication research. ‣ CMC has itself become a “primary area of communication studies” (D’Urso, 2009). ‣ The Internet offers new possibilities for academic publishing.

• Internationalization ‣ … vs. “Americanization”: Debate about the influence of US-researchers on our field.

(Wiedemann & Meyen, 2016)

2


The Present Study

• RQ1: How have the high-impact journals in the field of communication research evolved over time?

• RQ2: How have the topics in high-impact communication research journals evolved over time?

• RQ3: How are new media integrated into our research?

• RQ4: How international is international communication research?

3


Sample

• Basic population: Abstracts of publications in high-ranking international communication journals

• Data collection via EBSCOhost Communication & Mass Media Complete research database ‣ All journals published by the ICA ‣ + top communication journals as ranked SCImago Journal Rank Indicator ‣ = 19 journals with 17,858 articles, abstracts are digitally available for 15,173

• Preprocessing ‣ (Most) abstracts and meta-information such as title, authors, and year are available via XML-export ‣ National affiliation is determined via author’s institution + R-package ggmap

4


0

200

400

600

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Artic

les

JournalInt J Press/PolitCommun Methods MeasJ Comput Mediat CommunJournal StudJournalismNew Media SocMedia PsychGroup Process IntergComm ReviewPolit CommComm TheoryRes Lang Soc InteractEur J CommunComm EducationHuman Comm ResComm ResearchJ AdvertisingJ CommPublic Opin Quart

Rapidly Increasing Number of Publications

5

Among others due to the foundation of numerous new journals

(n = 17.858)


Topic Model

• Fully automated analysis strategy to infer the hidden semantic structure in large document collections

• Topics are latent variables ‣ Topics cause high co-occurrence of certain groups of words across all articles ‣ Each document in the text collection contains all of the inferred Topics to a variable extent

• Topics are typically represented by labels of the ten most relevant words. ‣ Word ambiguity and synonymy are accounted for

• „Bag of Words” approach ➛ Preprocessing ‣ Stemming („laughs” & „laughing” ➛ „laugh”), Stopword Removal („and”, „to”), set to lowercase

• R-package topicmodels (Correlated Topic Model)

6


15 Core Topics (CTM with K=145, n=15.173, max. 2 Top/Abstract, prob≥0.1)

77

T n Topic (assigned manually) Labels (generated automatically) Topic Distribution

1 1647 Education teacher, instruct, instructor, classroom, teach, verbal, credibl, humor, skill, speech0

50

2 1449 Marketing & PR advertis, brand, recal, creativ, placement, persuas, sale, memori, copi, repetit0

50

3 1106 Media use emot, narr, viewer, persuas, stereotyp, immigr, fiction, drama, cultiv, enjoy0

50

4 793 Compar. res/media stereotypes white, black, racial, ethnic, crime, african, welfar, victim, polic, asian0

50

5 750 Health risk, intervent, efficaci, patient, literaci, drug, cancer, client, advic, medic0

50

6 692 New media mobil, phone, capit, privaci, facebook, ict, turnout, cell, email, lifestyl0

50

7 661 Survey & interview research mail, household, letter, nonrespons, incent, request, refus, sponsorship, district, donat0

50

8 631 Media violence/media effects game, video, violenc, aggress, violent, arous, player, avatar, enjoy, gamer0

50

9 589 Religion religi, protest, arab, religion, activist, toler, cohort, authoritarian, marriag, terror0

50

10 551 Family & development children, famili, parent, child, mother, grade, development, father, preschool, elementari0

50

11 526 (Youth) at risk sexual, adolesc, peer, youth, smoke, girl, gai, psa, pornographi, cigarett0

50

12 509 Trust, privacy, and credibility trust, disclosur, decept, cmc, nonverb, violat, anonym, modal, sender, credibl0

50

13 425 Language languag, speech, speaker, semant, gestur, marker, repertoir, token, sentenc, grammat0

50

14 287 Relationships partner, satisfact, uncertainti, tactic, coupl, attach, hurt, romant, intimaci, compens0

50

15 223 Crisis & conflict isra, photograph, death, bbc, israel, palestinian, hyperlink, photographi, photo, narrat0

50

1950 1970 1990 2010


0

200

400

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Artic

les

TopicT16−145T15: Crisis and conflictT14: RelationshipsT13: LanguageT12: Trust, privacy, and credibilityT11: (Youth) at riskT10: Family and developmentT9: ReligionT8: Media violence/media effectsT7: Survey and interview researchT6: New mediaT5: HealthT4: Compar. res./media stereotypesT3: Media useT2: Marketing and PRT1: Education

New Media, Old Topics?

8

Core set of topics of communication research mostly stable despite a changing media landscape

(n = 11,976, max. 2 topics per abstract)


0

100

200

300

400

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Artic

les

Medium Personal Comm.BookRadioMovieTVNewsp./MagazineInternet w/o SMSocial Media

9

New Media are Integrated into Existing Fields of Research Research on all media has increased when looking at the total number of abstracts

0

1000

2000

3000

1935−1944 1945−1954 1955−1964 1965−1974 1975−1984 1985−1994 1995−2004 2005−2014

Artic

les

MediumPersönliche Komm.BuchRadioFilmFernsehenZeitung/Zeitschr.Internet ohne SMSocial Media

0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

1935−1944 1945−1954 1955−1964 1965−1974 1975−1984 1985−1994 1995−2004 2005−2014

Artic

les


Keyword search multiple media per abstract; Internet is only counted while mismatch for Social Media

(n=5,403)


0

100

200

300

400

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Artic

les

Medium Personal Comm.BookRadioMovieTVNewsp./MagazineInternet w/o SMSocial Media

10

…but, percentage-wise, new media gain most attentionNew Media are Integrated into Existing Fields of Research

(n=5,403)

0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

1935−1944 1945−1954 1955−1964 1965−1974 1975−1984 1985−1994 1995−2004 2005−2014

Artic

les



Articles1−10−100−250−500−1,000−5,000−7,500−10,000

Strong Influence of the USA on International Research

11

n = 9,118publications

689

292392

155

299

228

237

152

120



12

…slowly declining over time (>85% of publications until the 1980s to 73% in 1995-2004 to 61% in 2005-14)

7 %8 %10 %11 %

29 %

35 %

0

200

400

600

800

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Artic

les

National AffiliationUSAUKNetherlandsCanadaGermanyAustraliaIsraelSpainSwedenChinaBelgiumHong KongFinlandSouth KoreaGeorgiaFranceSwitzerlandDenmarkNew ZealandNorwaySingapurBeninItalyOther (n<50)

(n = 12.656)


Results: The Changing Research Landscape of Our Field

• Increasing number of outlets and publications, but no topical fragmentation of the field.

• Communication research features a distinct set of core topics that are adaptable and permeable enough to be able to integrate new technologies

• Qualitative changes such as the emergence of new topics are not (yet) visible in the core of the field, but ‣ we observed tremendous changes in the importance of certain topics (e.g., T6 New Media) in the last

two decades, and ‣ Internet and social media have become the most important media for investigation, parallel to (rather

than displacing) classic media like TV or newspapers.

• Increasing participation of international authors in high-ranking journals.

13

Thank You!

Questions and comments are also welcome via email:

Elisabeth Günther [email protected]

Emese Domahidi [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]?subject=

mailto:[email protected]?subject=


Backup: Sample

15


Stats | Journals in the Sample

16

Founded in DB from Abstracts dig. from n Missings M (Pub./year) SD

Public Opin Quart 1937 1937 1937 3870 12 48,99 12,99J Advertising 1972 1972 1972 1261 18 28,66 6,8Comm Research 1974 1974 1974 1253 1 29,83 6,89Comm Education 1952 1976 1976 1397 0 34,92 12,87Res Lang Soc Interact 1969 1987 1987 505 0 18,04 4,99J Comm 1951 1951 1988 1120 1653 40 11,33Polit Comm 1980 1992 1992 660 0 27,5 6,38Human Comm Res 1974 1974 1994 524 532 23,82 3,7Comm Review 1995 1995 1995 341 1 16,24 4,6Comm Theory 1991 1991 1996 434 151 21,7 3,31Eur J Commun 1986 1986 1998 410 251 22,78 5,97Group Process Interg 1998 1998 1998 76 0 5,43 3,52Media Psych 1999 1999 1999 358 1 21,06 9,14New Media Soc 1999 1999 1999 800 6 47,06 20,22Journalism 2000 2000 2000 604 35 37,75 18,85Journal Stud 2000 2000 2000 790 4 49,38 10,68J Comput Mediat Commun 1995 2005 2005 435 19 39,55 18,12Commun Methods Meas 2007 2007 2007 144 1 16 7,16Int J Press/Polit 1996 2008 2008 191 0 23,88 3,27


Sample: Missing Abstracts

17

0

200

400

600

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Artic

les

AbstractMissingOnline verfügbarMissingAvailable Online


Sample: Missing Abstracts by Journal

18

Public Opin QuartJ Advertising

Comm ResearchComm Education

Res Lang Soc InteractJ Comm

Polit CommHuman Comm Res

Comm ReviewComm Theory

Eur J CommunGroup Process Interg

Media PsychNew Media Soc

JournalismJournal Stud

J Comput Mediat CommunCommun Methods Meas

Int J Press/Polit

0 1000 2000 3000 4000Articles

AbstractMissingOnline verfügbarMissingAvailable Online


Backup: Authors’ National Affiliation

19


Stats | Authors’ National Affiliation

20

(n=12.656, multiple national affiliations per abstract)

1935-1944 1945-1954 1955-1964 1965-1974 1975-1984 1985-1994 1995-2004 2005-2014

USA 102 (86,44%)

200 (86,96%)

386 (87,33%)

495 (87,3%)

839 (87,12%)

1041 (85,4%)

1327 (73,07%)

4454 (61,01%)

UK 3 (2,54%) 10 (4,35%) 5 (1,13%) 7 (1,23%) 11 (1,14%) 25 (2,05%) 124 (6,83%) 475 (6,51%)Netherlands / 2 (0,87%) 1 (0,23%) 1 (0,18%) 11 (1,14%) 3 (0,25%) 36 (1,98%) 317 (4,34%)Canada 1 (0,85%) / 7 (1,58%) 18 (3,17%) 13 (1,35%) 43 (3,53%) 45 (2,48%) 160 (2,19%)Germany 2 (1,69%) / 1 (0,23%) 1 (0,18%) 4 (0,42%) 19 (1,56%) 28 (1,54%) 216 (2,96%)Australia / / / 4 (0,71%) 2 (0,21%) 7 (0,57%) 38 (2,09%) 171 (2,34%)Israel / 3 (1,3%) 1 (0,23%) 4 (0,71%) 9 (0,93%) 11 (0,9%) 26 (1,43%) 164 (2,25%)Spain 1 (0,85%) / / 1 (0,18%) 12 (1,25%) 18 (1,48%) 7 (0,39%) 107 (1,47%)Sweden 1 (0,85%) 2 (0,87%) 3 (0,68%) 2 (0,35%) 2 (0,21%) 5 (0,41%) 11 (0,61%) 121 (1,66%)China 1 (0,85%) 2 (0,87%) 17 (3,85%) 11 (1,94%) 17 (1,77%) 6 (0,49%) 13 (0,72%) 51 (0,7%)Belgium / / / / 1 (0,1%) / 6 (0,33%) 83 (1,14%)Hong Kong / / / 1 (0,18%) 4 (0,42%) 3 (0,25%) 18 (0,99%) 67 (0,92%)Finland / / / / / / 11 (0,61%) 66 (0,9%)South Korea / / / / / / 4 (0,22%) 76 (1,04%)Other (n < 75) 7 (5,93%) 11 (4,78%) 21 (4,75%) 22 (3,88%) 38 (3,95%) 38 (3,12%) 122 (6,72%) 773 (10,59%)



21

… varies across journals.

(n = 12.656)

1935−1944 1945−1954 1955−1964 1965−1974 1975−1984 1985−1994 1995−2004 2005−2014

Public Opin QuartJ Advertising

Comm ResearchComm Education

Res Lang Soc InteractJ Comm

Polit CommHuman Comm Res

Comm ReviewComm Theory

Eur J CommunGroup Process Interg

Media PsychNew Media Soc

JournalismJournal Stud

J Comput Mediat CommunCommun Methods Meas

Int J Press/Polit

Percentage of Articles

National Aff.USAUKNetherlandsCanadaGermanyAustraliaIsraelSpainSwedenChinaBelgiumHong KongFinlandSouth KoreaGeorgiaFranceSwitzerlandDenmarkNew ZealandNorwaySingapurBeninItalyOther (n<50)


Backup: Topics / Topic Model

22


Stats | Topics (n=11.976, CTM with K=145, max. 2 Top/Abstract, prob≥0.1)

23

1935-1944 1945-1954 1955-1964 1965-1974 1975-1984 1985-1994 1995-2004 2005-2014

T1: Education 17 (7,%) 24 (7,25%) 30 (7,48%) 33 (6,83%) 356 (29,01%) 329 (21,74%) 375 (14,31%) 450 (8,72%)

T2: Marketing & PR 24 (9,88%) 20 (6,04%) 26 (6,48%) 78 (16,15%) 258 (21,03%) 253 (16,72%) 310 (11,83%) 454 (8,8%)T3: Media Use 11 (4,53%) 23 (6,95%) 33 (8,23%) 39 (8,07%) 61 (4,97%) 104 (6,87%) 240 (9,16%) 549 (10,64%)T4: Comp.R. /M-Stereot. 14 (5,76%) 22 (6,65%) 37 (9,23%) 67 (13,87%) 61 (4,97%) 73 (4,82%) 208 (7,94%) 301 (5,84%)

T5: Health 9 (3,7%) 14 (4,23%) 29 (7,23%) 18 (3,73%) 47 (3,83%) 72 (4,76%) 184 (7,02%) 364 (7,06%)T6: New Media 6 (2,47%) 15 (4,53%) 7 (1,75%) 14 (2,9%) 26 (2,12%) 33 (2,18%) 97 (3,7%) 457 (8,86%)T7: Survey & Interview 25 (10,29%) 44 (13,29%) 47 (11,72%) 70 (14,49%) 77 (6,28%) 72 (4,76%) 104 (3,97%) 209 (4,05%)T8: M & Viol. /M-Effects 8 (3,29%) 6 (1,81%) 6 (1,5%) 9 (1,86%) 26 (2,12%) 40 (2,64%) 130 (4,96%) 370 (7,17%)

T9: Religion 38 (15,64%) 31 (9,37%) 28 (6,98%) 38 (7,87%) 33 (2,69%) 66 (4,36%) 97 (3,7%) 245 (4,75%)T10: Family & Developm. 8 (3,29%) 20 (6,04%) 17 (4,24%) 30 (6,21%) 83 (6,76%) 84 (5,55%) 129 (4,92%) 163 (3,16%)T11: (Youth) at Risk 2 (0,82%) 8 (2,42%) 12 (2,99%) 15 (3,11%) 18 (1,47%) 47 (3,11%) 117 (4,47%) 284 (5,51%)

T12: Trust,Privacy&Cred. 3 (1,23%) 12 (3,63%) 13 (3,24%) 9 (1,86%) 42 (3,42%) 49 (3,24%) 100 (3,82%) 258 (5,0%)T13: Language 8 (3,29%) 4 (1,21%) 8 (2,%) 6 (1,24%) 48 (3,91%) 81 (5,35%) 114 (4,35%) 143 (2,77%)T14: Relationships 1 (0,41%) 3 (0,91%) 5 (1,25%) 3 (0,62%) 9 (0,73%) 30 (1,98%) 65 (2,48%) 161 (3,12%)

T15: Crisis & Conflict 1 (0,41%) 6 (1,81%) 3 (0,75%) 5 (1,04%) 4 (0,33%) 12 (0,79%) 46 (1,76%) 140 (2,71%)T16-145 68 (27,98%) 79 (23,87%) 100 (24,94%) 49 (10,14%) 78 (6,36%) 168 (11,1%) 304 (11,6%) 610 (11,83%)


Backup: Keyword Search / Media

25


Stats | Media Identified in Keyword-Search

26

Number of abstracts that mention at least one medium (n=5,403, multiple media per abstract except Internet & social media)

1935-1944 1945-1954 1955-1964 1965-1974 1975-1984 1985-1994 1995-2004 2005-2014

Personal Comm. 18 (6,84%) 7 (3,57%) 7 (4,19%) 6 (4,29%) 171 (32,82%) 134 (20,43%) 132 (9,64%) 175 (5,24%)

Book 22 (8,37%) 34 (17,35%) 41 (24,55%) 8 (5,71%) 46 (8,83%) 93 (14,18%) 96 (7,01%) 170 (5,09%)

Radio 72 (27,38%) 47 (23,98%) 26 (15,57%) 19 (13,57%) 26 (4,99%) 29 (4,42%) 65 (4,75%) 84 (2,52%)

Movie 26 (9,89%) 12 (6,12%) 3 (1,8%) 4 (2,86%) 21 (4,03%) 29 (4,42%) 55 (4,02%) 108 (3,24%)

TV 33 (12,55%) 40 (20,41%) 46 (27,54%) 67 (47,86%) 178 (34,17%) 241 (36,74%) 437 (31,92%) 547 (16,39%)

Newspaper / Magazine 91 (34,6%) 56 (28,57%) 44 (26,35%) 35 (25,0%) 77 (14,78%) 121 (18,45%) 315 (23,01%) 639 (19,15%)

Internet w/o Social Media 1 (0,38%) / / 1 (0,71%) 2 (0,38%) 8 (1,22%) 264 (19,28%) 1,143

(34,25%)

Social Media / / / / / 1 (0,15%) 5 (0,37%) 471 (14,11%)