Twenty-Four Years of Digital Activism: A Bibliometric Analysis of Trends and Future Directions

This study aims to examine global research trends in the field of digital activism by analyzing publication outputs, co-citations, co-occurrences, and collaborations among countries. Data from 2000 to March 2024 were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database and analyzed using R Studio. A total of 1,476 unique authors published 907 papers across 524 journals. The findings indicate that research on digital activism is predominantly published in Western European and American journals, highlighting a lack of diversity in terms of countries and regions. Most of the cited authors and publications originate from the United States. The rate of single-country publications (SCP) is higher than that of multi-country publications (MCP) in all publishing countries, suggesting that authors of digital activism prefer to collaborate with colleagues from their own countries. The annual growth rate in this area is 10%. The most cited studies collected data from microblogging sites and employed content analysis techniques. Our results outline the current state of research and emphasize the necessity of integrating various disciplines while also acknowledging the contributions of developing countries for future advancements.