Research trends in social media: A meta-analysis of business-related literature

소셜미디어 연구의 흐름: 경영학 관련 연구의 메타분석

The number of studies on social media has increased rapidly worldwide. There has been, however, little effort to assess the achievements and limitations of social media studies up to present. The purpose of this study is to provide a systematical viewpoint on social media research published by scholarly business-related journals. Our analysis focus on research topic, functionality, targeted media types, methodology, and characteristics. User research receives the most attention, followed by effect research in terms of developmental models of media research agenda. The major methodological trend is online survey. Facebook and twitter are the two most popular mediums studied in literature, and social media is mainly characterized as information sharing as well as relationship building. Two recommendations are suggested in ways to strengthen social media research: more various topics and application areas, and the rigor and diversity of research methods.