Comparative Scientometric Analysis in Social Media: What Can We Learn? And What Is Next? - Information and Communication Technologies in Public Administration - page 115

5.4 Conclusions and Discussion

According to our results, there are an increasing number of papers published in JCR
journals about the use of social media in public administrations, and the number is
growing in the last years (RQ1). In fact, social media in public administrations has
mainly attracted the attention of researchers in the last 3 years. It is a reflection of the
increasing incorporation of these technologies in the social life of people and the need
of public administrations to implement these technologies in public affairs (Table 5.9).
In addition, our results indicate that many papers have analyzed the social media
applications used by governments and the use that public administrations have made

table 5.9 Research Findings

Research Questions Main Conclusions

RQ1. Social media
articles published in
JCR journals

Social media has attracted the attention of researchers
in the last 3 years.

RQ2. Aspects of social
media

Many papers have been addressed to analyze the
social media applications used by governments,
showing that public administrations have implemented
the most widely used social media applications:
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn-.
The use has been homogeneous by all level of public
administrations.
E-participation has been the main research topic
published in Communication and Information Science
journals.
Delivery of public services is the key research topic in
Public Administration journals.
Several different theories have been called to be
applied in the application of social media.

RQ3. Journals publish
most frequently

Most of papers about the use of social media in
governments have been published in Information
Science and Library Science journals, followed closely
by Communication journals.
Government Information Quarterly and Social Science
Computer Review are the main outlets for papers
about the use of Web 2.0 applications in governments.

RQ4. Research
methodologies

Qualitative methodologies are more frequently used.

( Continued )