Virtual Communities: A Bibliometric Analysis

Virtual communities are a popular phenomenon today. They are significantly altering the specifics of how people work, spend their free time and interact socially. Moreover, they have been receiving growing attention in the academic literature. This study aims to identify and analyze the current academic literature in virtual communities using bibliometric analysis, and thus gain insight into its related body of knowledge. Extracting data from the ISI Web of Science, the number of yearly publications, most productive authors and countries, cross-country collaborations and the varying scientific fields dealing with the multidisciplinary concept are identified, to name a few. Article citation and co-citation analyses are conducted to distinguish the central works in virtual community literature. Finally, deriving from these analyses, conclusions and research opportunities for further studies are discussed.