The impact of COVID-19 on infodemic research: a bibliometric analysis of global publications

Abstract

Purpose

Objective is to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on the performance and productivity of infodemic research. A comprehensive bibliometric analysis is conducted using data extracted from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science, and the analysis is facilitated by the bibliometrix and biblioshiny tools.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) database provided by Thomson Reuters. Therefore, literature published outside of the WoS database was not included. Results were extracted about the Document Type, Research Area, Language, Publication year, and country or countries for all authors because this study was interested in scholarly international collaboration. The researcher also used the Thomson Reuters Web of Science’s InCites Essential Science Indicators database, which allowed the researcher to measure the scientific output performance of countries over a period of time. In addition to InCites data, citation data and international collaboration for all countries were also downloaded.

Findings

Inclusion and exclusion criteriax: this study focused on literature published by authors identified by each author’s affiliation in each publication. Thus, the WoS topic field was searched by “infodemic” or “information epidemic” or “info ebidemic”. The time span selected for this study started from 2018 to 2022, allowing the researcher to survey the nature of the literature during the last 6 years before COVID-19 and 4 years after COVID-19 to identify the effects of COVID-19 on research in the world regarding both performance and productivity. The study included various types of materials, such as articles, early access, and review articles.

Originality/value

A comprehensive bibliometric analysis is conducted using data extracted from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science, and the analysis is facilitated by the bibliometrix and biblioshiny tools. The findings reveal that prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, researchers contributed a total of 3,960 documents, with the United States leading with 2,933 publications, followed by China with 2,561. However, the production of infodemic research doubled following the onset of the pandemic, resulting in a total of 6,979 documents. Both before and after COVID-19.

Citation

Ahmed, H.A., Osman, I. and Mari, H. (2024), "The impact of COVID-19 on infodemic research: a bibliometric analysis of global publications", Library Hi Tech, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-08-2023-0363