A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHES ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

The purpose of this study is to examine the educational researches published about social media from a bibliometric perspective. The study used the case study design, which is a qualitative research design. The keyword “Social Media” was searched in research topics in the Web of Science (WoS) database. “Document title”, “abstract” and “keyword” were chosen as search criteria. Studies published between 2007 and 2021 were included in the analysis. The bibliometric data of 3861 academic studies contained in WoS educational researchs category constitute the data set of the study. The study found that educational researches on social media especially as of 2008 and this trend continued in the following years. The most frequent languages of publication in the field of social media in education are English, Spanish and Portuguese, respectively, and the most frequent types of academic research are articles, papers, and book chapters. Michigan State University, Florida State University System and University of North Carolina are the affiliations with the highest number of publishing researchers. In Turkey, Anadolu University is the affiliation with the biggest number of authors publishing research about social media in education. The USA, England and Australia are the three countries where studies about social media in education are published the most, respectively. The number of citations of academic studies published after 2010 is increasing every passing year. The most frequently used keywords in academic studies on media literacy in education are the concepts of “social media”, “higher education”, “Facebook”, “Twitter”, “e-learning”, “social networks” and "Web 2.0". Keywords: Social media, education, bibliometric analysis, Web of Science