Aug 2026· e-Jurnal Penyelidikan dan Inovasi· 0 citations
TL;DR
Global research on the digital divide from 2006 to 2025 is mapped using bibliometric analysis of publications indexed in Scopus to highlight underexplored issues such as the experiences of marginalized groups, the offline impact of digital exclusion, and new challenges posed by AI, IoT and metaverse.
Abstract
The digital divide continues to shape how societies access, use, and benefit from technology, often reinforcing existing social and economic inequalities. This study maps global research on the digital divide from 2006 to 2025 using bibliometric analysis of publications indexed in Scopus. A total of 4662 relevant articles were analyzed through tools such as VOSviewer to trace publication trends, influential authors, collaboration networks, and evolving thematic areas. The findings show a surge of interest after 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating debates on digital literacy, equitable access, and inclusion. Social sciences and computer sciences emerged as the leading subject areas, while the United States, China and the United Kingdom contributed the highest number of publications. However, contributions from developing countries remain limited despite being the most affected by digital inequality. The results highlight underexplored issues such as the experiences of marginalized groups, the offline impact of digital exclusion, and new challenges posed by AI, IoT and metaverse. This study provides not only a snapshot of how research on the digital divide has evolved but also points towards future directions for scholarship and policymaking, particularly in ensuring that digital technologies contribute to more inclusive and sustainable societies.
The study shows a significant research trend over time, with a spike in 2014 and 2020, with Warwick as the most relevant author and the USA as the leading producing country.
Azka Shahzad, Tuhin Ahmad Shubha· Journal of Knowledge & C...· 0 citations
Scholarship on civil society is dispersed across disciplines, journals, and regional traditions, which makes the field difficult to see as a whole. The objective of this study is to map trends, developments, and structures in civil society research globally during the period 2019–2024. A bibliometric approach was used to analyze 2,528 articles from the Scopus database. A thorough analysis employing Biblioshiny and VOSviewer has been conducted, revealing active research domains with considerable citation impact. Furthermore, the analysis discloses annual output fluctuations that exhibit responsiveness to the global context. The results indicate the preeminence of productivity from the Global North, though there is an increasing trend of participation from the Global South, accompanied by intricate citation impact patterns. Thematically, research focuses on democracy, human rights, and governance, while adapting to challenges such as authoritarianism and the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with a focus on NGOs and collective action. International collaboration (19.42%) and intellectual connectivity are extensive, albeit centered on North-North and North-South networks. This comprehensive mapping underscores the relevance of civil society and highlights the need for efforts to promote more inclusive collaboration and deeper contextual research.
Efraim Semuel Nalle, Sugito· SN Social Sciences· 0 citations
Since the end of the Cold War, Joseph S. Nye’s concept of soft power has become a central analytical framework for understanding national attraction and non-coercive influence in international relations. Despite the rapid expansion of both theoretical and empirical research, the field still lacks systematic bibliometric evidence concerning its knowledge structure, thematic evolution, and patterns of scholarly collaboration. To address this gap, this study constructs a comprehensive bibliometric map of global soft power research based on 2,772 English-language social science articles indexed in the Scopus database from 1991 to 2025. Using VOSviewer and RStudio (Biblioshiny), the analysis examines publication trends, citation structures, country collaboration networks, author co-citation relationships, keyword co-occurrence patterns, and thematic evolution pathways. The findings indicate that soft power research experienced steady growth after 2005, followed by a pronounced acceleration after 2015. While the United States, China, and the United Kingdom remain the principal research hubs, Australia emerges as an important cross-regional bridge, suggesting a shift toward a more multi-center structure of knowledge production. Keyword co-occurrence and thematic evolution further reveal a transition from early concept-oriented debates to a more diversified and policy-focused research agenda. In addition, soft power is increasingly conceptualized as an observable and comparable form of international influence, with growing attention to practical domains such as higher education cooperation, sports diplomacy, digital diplomacy, vaccine diplomacy, and the Belt and Road Initiative. Overall, this study systematically maps the intellectual structure and emerging frontiers of global soft power research, highlighting the rise of multipolar soft power and a shift toward policy-oriented and interdisciplinary inquiry, while providing a bibliometric foundation for developing measurable soft power assessment frameworks.
Na Wang, M. Ahmad· Multidisciplinary Reviews· 0 citations
Keyword co-occurrence network and thematic analyses show that digital humanities is organized around interconnected themes such as information systems, computational models, networks, algorithms, knowledge, behaviour, impact, and scholarly communication.
A. S· IP Indian Journal of Library...· 0 citations
This review maps the intellectual structure of digital commerce during a global crisis and identifies opportunities for future research to enhance resilience and adaptability in digital ecosystems.
Khaled Nawaser, Hassan Hessari, Hoda Mohsenifard et al.· SN Business & Economics· 0 citations
Digital literacy has become a key driver of women’s entrepreneurship in the evolving digital economy, enabling access
to information, markets, and financial resources. Despite increasing academic attention, the research landscape at the
intersection of digital literacy and women entrepreneurship remains fragmented. The aim of this study is to provide
a detailed bibliometric analysis to map the global trends in research, the intellectual structures and emerging themes
in this field. The analysis is performed based on publications published in the Scopus database from 2021 to 2026. The
performance analysis and science mapping techniques are used to analyse the growth of publications, leading authors,
influential journals and country level contributions. Collaboration analysis using co-authorship, co-citation and keyword
co-occurrence methods are performed to detect the co-authorship patterns and thematic clusters in the literature. The
results show that there is a considerable increase in research activity over the last few years, which points to an increase
in research interest in digital inclusion and women’s economic empowerment globally. The paper covers the studies on
financial inclusion, e-commerce adoption, financial empowerment, and financial skill development. The analysis also
yields an impression of regional imbalance, with more publications from developed countries and less from developing
economies, notwithstanding their context. The present study helps in this regard in providing a structured overview of
the knowledge domain and highlighting the research gaps. It offers insights and relevance for researchers, policy makers
and practitioners on how the transformative potential of digital literacy in promoting inclusive and sustainable womenled
entrepreneurship.
Aarti Saini, Pooja Rani, C. Gopal· International Journal of Aca...· 0 citations
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