---
title: "Social media research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “social media” appeared in 1,872 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (564), information systems (360) and management (268)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-media
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-media.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “social media” appeared in 1,872 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (564), information systems (360) and management (268). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “social media”

Research on “social media” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “social media” appeared in 1,872 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in AI (564), information systems (360) and management (268).
- 191 of them were published in 2025, against 135 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Tianjin University (12), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (11) and City University of Hong Kong (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Expert Systems with Applications (51), Information Processing & Management (40) and Knowledge-Based Systems (30).
- The most-cited of them is “The future of social media in marketing” (Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2019), with 1,892 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 28 | 37 | 40 | 61 | 61 | 65 | 60 | 72 | 82 | 58 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 44 | 47 | 51 | 32 | 48 | 47 | 25 | 26 | 22 | 18 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 19 | 20 | 32 | 28 | 36 | 34 | 26 | 26 | 23 | 24 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 20 | 13 | 28 | 28 | 26 | 13 | 14 | 25 | 10 | 10 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 5 | 16 | 12 | 15 | 16 | 12 | 19 | 13 | 11 | 11 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 5 | 7 | 8 | 11 | 15 | 17 | 13 | 25 | 17 | 7 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 2 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 14 | 6 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 8 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 6 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 3 | 8 | 2 | 7 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 135 | 166 | 188 | 206 | 238 | 208 | 182 | 210 | 191 | 148 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 51 |
| 2 | [Information Processing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-processing-management.md) | 40 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 30 |
| 4 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 27 |
| 5 | [Information Fusion](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-fusion.md) | 22 |
| 6 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 17 |
| 7 | [Information & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-management.md) | 16 |
| 8 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 15 |
| 9 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 15 |
| 10 | [Knowledge and Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-and-information-systems.md) | 14 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Tianjin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tianjin-university.md) | 12 |
| 2 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 11 |
| 3 | [City University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/city-university-of-hong-kong.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 9 |
| 5 | [Harbin Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/harbin-institute-of-technology.md) | 9 |
| 6 | [Dalian University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/dalian-university-of-technology.md) | 8 |
| 7 | [Jilin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jilin-university.md) | 8 |
| 8 | [Beijing Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-institute-of-technology.md) | 7 |
| 9 | [Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-university-of-posts-and-telecommunications.md) | 7 |
| 10 | [Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university-of-posts-and-telecommunications.md) | 7 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 242 |
| 2 | United States | 146 |
| 3 | India | 70 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 67 |
| 5 | Spain | 44 |
| 6 | Australia | 42 |
| 7 | Germany | 38 |
| 8 | Hong Kong | 36 |
| 9 | South Korea | 29 |
| 10 | Italy | 28 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Twitter](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/twitter.md) | 91 |
| 2 | misinformation | 50 |
| 3 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 46 |
| 4 | [sentiment analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sentiment-analysis.md) | 41 |
| 5 | fake news detection | 28 |
| 6 | rumor detection | 27 |
| 7 | information dissemination | 26 |
| 8 | [large language models](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/large-language-models.md) | 26 |
| 9 | Weibo | 25 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,892 | 22.3 | [The future of social media in marketing](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1) | [Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-the-academy-of-marketing-science.md) | 2019-10-12 | Gil Appel, Lauren S. Grewal, Rhonda Hadi et al. |
| 2 | 1,288 | 11.9 | [Advances in Social Media Research: Past, Present and Future](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9810-y) | [Information Systems Frontiers](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-systems-frontiers.md) | 2017-11-06 | Kawaljeet Kaur Kapoor, Kuttimani Tamilmani, Nripendra Pratap Rana et al. |
| 3 | 997 | 10.9 | [An overview of online fake news: Characterization, detection, and discussion](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2019.03.004) | [Information Processing & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-processing-management.md) | 2019-03-20 | Xichen Zhang, Ali Akbar Ghorbani |
| 4 | 841 | 10.1 | [Sentiment analysis using deep learning architectures: a review](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-019-09794-5) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2019-12-02 | Ashima Yadav, Dinesh Kumar Vishwakarma |
| 5 | 652 | 7.3 | [Digitalization, business models, and SMEs: How do business model innovation practices improve performance of digitalizing SMEs?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2019.101828) | [Telecommunications Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/telecommunications-policy.md) | 2019-05-24 | Harry Bouwman, Shahrokh Nikou, Mark de Reuver |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Finfluencers and the retail trade](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/finfluencers-and-retail-trading.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “social media”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-media

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-social-media,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “social media”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/social-media}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).