Exploring the topic structure and evolution of associations in information behavior research through co-word analysis
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Scientific › peer-review
Details
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | JOURNAL OF LIBRARIANSHIP AND INFORMATION SCIENCE |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |
Publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Abstract
This study aims to reveal the distribution of topics, and the associations among them, in information behavior research from 2009 to 2018. Working with a collection of 6744 publications from the Web of Science database, co-word analysis is used to investigate the overall topic structure, the associations among the topics, and their evolution in different years, which is supplemented by visualization with science maps. The results uncovered an unbalanced distribution of topics, and that the topics cluster into six communities representing subdivisions of this field: information behavior in patient-centered studies; information interaction in the digital environment; information literacy in health and academic contexts; health literacy on the Internet; information behavior in child-centered studies; and information behavior in medical informatics. The findings supplement and provide refinements to work on the state of this field, and help researchers obtain an overview of the past decade to guide their future work.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- co-word analysis, Information behavior research, topic evolution, topic structure