A bibliometric analysis of web 2.0 in election campaign

Abstract

The aim of this research is to review and analyze the landscape of adopting and using Web 2.0 in election campaigns by focusing on scholarly publications and production. Bibliometric methods thoroughly reviewed trends, citations, and thematic analysis, as well as the contributions of key players, such as sources, authors, countries, and institutions to the context of Web 2.0 in election campaigns. A total of 1117 peer-reviewed publications were obtained from the Scopus database. The result showed that substantial advancements in this field commenced in 2005 and have since experienced exponential growth, reaching a peak in 2022 with the most published works. The most pertinent journals for adopting and using Web 2.0 in election campaigns are the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Information Communication and Society, and New Media and Society. The United States leads all other countries regarding citations, and Spain has the highest number of research contributing to the sector. The purpose of these results is to provide insight into the development of academic interest and assist research in understanding the topic evolution by identifying specific areas as a focus. This facilitates the discovery of recommended publication avenues, aspects warranting further research, and opportunities for collaboration on pertinent resources.

1. Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly Web 2.0, are increasingly dominating various aspects of life, including politics. This transformation affects election, which are an essential part of democracy. Web 2.0 opens up new political participation, campaigning, and information dissemination opportunities as users interact. The phenomenon of Web 2.0 represents a significant change in how candidates and voters communicate during election campaigns, bringing more sophisticated, content-rich programming methods [1], and even playing a role in the transition from election to permanent campaigns [2,3].

Before the development of Web 2.0 tools, empirical evidence had already validated the effectiveness of using Web 1.0 in election campaigns, as shown by early research in this field [[4], [5], [6], [7]]. Even in the pre-90s era, since political parties first came on the Internet, Gibson & Ward identified three main areas. First was the intra-party arena, in the context of how the Internet facilitates political parties in internal communication. Second, the inter-party arena, referring to the comparative competitiveness of online campaigns of political parties. Finally, the systemic arena, which is how the adoption of this technology for political parties affects position in democracy [8].

Gibson & Ward reported that in the intra-party arena, the concentration of early research was limited to the adoption of new technologies for internal party purposes at each level [9,10] as well as mobilization and participation at the individual level [11]. Meanwhile, research in the inter-party realm places Margolis et al. as the initial foundation in analyzing the use of Web by parties with the core idea that online politics reflects what happens in the real world [12]. With the sharpening gap between big and small parties, research then concluded in the normalization thesis characterized by “politics as usual” [13], where the role of the Internet is moving traditional advertising to cyberspace. The Internet tends to invade and dominate cyberspace. In the systemic arena, previous research has confirmed technology adoption by parties, specifically outside the US and UK, such as Italy, Russia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Some topics expressed by Gibson & Ward are standardization, conservatism, targeting, virtual infrastructure, controlled interactivity, and resource generation.

The presence of Web 2.0, with a more varied platform and undoubtedly different from the previous generation, promises technological impacts for developing more interactive politics, specifically in election campaigns. Web 2.0 shifts the role of Web 1.0, which tends to be static, into a dialogue between candidates and voters through various platforms with broader features, otherwise known as the "Web of Document" [14]. Furthermore, Web 2.0 applications, such as wikis, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Instagram, social networks, and social media, are commonly used in different disciplines, including politics and election. Candidates can spread campaign messages faster and to more people. On the other hand, voters can actively contribute through comments, sharing information, and even participating in online campaigns. This phenomenon created a new dynamic in democracy, allowing individuals to make better decisions and engage more actively in political conversations. However, despite the great potential, the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in political campaigns cannot avoid challenges and threats. Issues, such as misinformation, disinformation, hoaxes, echo chambers, and misuse of personal data for microtargeting seem to be seriously debated. Therefore, it is important to understand how Web 2.0 play a significant role in changing the methods of conducting campaigns and the effect of the interactions on election outcomes.

Although there is a substantial body of literature on the adoption and use of social media and social networks in election campaigns, a significant gap exists in comprehensive research that specifically identifies trend patterns and maps gaps within the broader context of Web 2.0. Therefore, this research will systematically review the development of scholarly literature related to the topic, showing key trends and the field evolution using bibliometric analysis method. This research is critical to building a solid foundation for understanding the role of Web 2.0 in the democratic process and the effect on election results.

A review of the existing scholarly literature was conducted to address the following specific questions.

• 1.What is the present status of research about using Web 2.0 in election campaigns?
• 2.What recent trends can be observed in publications regarding Web 2.0 technologies and election campaigns?
• 3.Which key players, namely sources, authors, countries, and institutions have contributed to driving progress in Web 2.0 research in election campaigns?
• 4.What important research topics underlie the development and growth of the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns?

2. Literature review

2.1. Web 2.0 in election campaign

The second generation of Web development is referred to as Web 2.0 [15,16], also known as social computing [17], user-generated media [18], and even more commonly referred to as social media [19,20] and social networking [21]. The term Web 2.0 was coined by Dale Dougherty, the vice president of O'Reilly, during a conference with MediaLive in 2004 [14,22].

The advantages of Web 2.0 are predicted to surpass the interaction of the first-generation features that tend to be static by offering some services considered the main concepts. These services include User reviews/Evaluation, Wiki, Blog, Content Sharing, Open source software adage, P2P/free download, RSS, Mashups, Podcast, Tag Clouds, Social bookmarking, and Wikinomics [23]. More broadly, the taxonomy scheme of Web 2. 0 from various sources includes Dynamic Content Application (DCA), such as Digg, Delicious, CiteUlike, Connotea, Complore, Google Maps, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, and Blogger. Others include Social Content Application (SCA), Communication, and Social Network Application (SNA), such as Second Life, e-mail, forums, bulletin boards, newsgroups, mailing lists, chat and instant private messaging, RSS Feed, Myspace, Facebook, Wikipedia, LibraryThing, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn, Flickr, Ibibo, Netlog and Ning [24,25].

This new iteration of the Internet caused a fundamental change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. The participatory system available in Web 2.0, which focused on openness, inclusiveness, collaboration, and customization, replaced the previous model characterized by a linear flow of content production, distribution, and consumption. This new system enables individuals to collectively develop, share, evaluate, and use digital content [25]. Furthermore, this condition promotes the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in various sectors. Previous research reported the use of Web 2.0, for example, in the education sector [26,27], government [28,29], and healthcare [30], as well as the political campaign and election sector [31].

According to Towner & Dulio, there was limited early literature on the adoption and use of Web 2.0. Some of the tools examined included blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, virtual worlds, social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter), video-sharing (YouTube), and photo-sharing (Flickr) [31]. Therefore, Web 2.0 tools confirmed by Towner & Dulio became the starting point for this research to be used as keywords in the systematic search process.

2.2. Past bibliometric research

Previous bibliometric research reviewed the relevant context of social media and political campaigns. Others choose either social media or political campaigns, as shown in Table 1. However, previous research still have fundamental limitations. Subekti et al. reviewed 1,555 documents from the Scopus database that were limited to 2010–2020 [32], and the search mechanism of the keywords was not explained. The right keywords restricted the scope in determining the focus of science mapping [33] and eventually affected the quality of the results of the co-word [34]. In order to increase the validity of search terms, it was recommended to consult with a panel of experts [35].

Table 1.

Overview of prior research.

Author	Domain/Search Strategy	Data Source & Scope	TDE	Bibliometric/SLR Attributes Examined
Subekti et al. (2022) [36]	N/A	Scopus (2010–2020)	1,555	-Global publication -Countries contribution -Author contribution -Keywords Mapping
Prakash & Dwivedi (2022) [37]	“Political campaigning” or “Election campaigning”	Web of Science and Scopus (2011–2021)	1090	-Publication of the year -Author contribution -Countries contribution -Productive of a source -Affiliation -Trending Keywords
Subekti, Nurmandi, & Mutiarin (2022) [32]	Political Parties Campaign in Social Media	Scopus (2015–2021)	357	-Countries contribution -Source of journal -Author contribution -Institution’s output -Document affiliation -Keywords Mapping
Subekti et al. (2023) [38]	“Political communication in social media”	Scopus (2013–2023)	24	-Number of publications each year -Publication sources -Countries contribution -Author contribution -Affiliation

TDE = Total documents examined.

Furthermore, the research by Prakash & Dwivedi, using the keywords "political campaigning" or "election campaigning" from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases [37], reviewed 1090 documents. This includes presenting the publication of years, contribution of author, contribution of countries, productive of source, affiliation, and trending keywords, but was limited to the years 2011–2021. In addition to the year restriction, the keywords used focus on the broad political campaign process without regard to traditional campaigning or only online campaigning.

Subekti et al. used specific keywords, namely "political communication" and "social media," leading to a minimal range of documents [38]. Political communication on social media is a political practice that occurs in the political campaign process and also outside of election conditions. Furthermore, the research restricts the scope to the years ranging from 2013 to 2023. To address the existing void, this bibliometric analysis used more extensive search terms, specifically "adoption or use," "web 2.0," "election," and "campaign." The novelty of this research is "Web 2.0," a broader evolution of Web 1.0 that fosters a user-centered and collaborative environment [39]. This includes practices, such as folksonomies, co-browsing, tagging, social networking, and social media [24]. Furthermore, this research focuses on 2005, which marks the global adoption of Web 2.0 following the inception in 2004 [14,40].

3. Methods

3.1. Bibliometric analysis

"Bibliometric" was defined as the use of mathematical and statistical methods in books and other forms of communication medium [41]. This term shows that bibliometric analysis uses bibliographic data to assess the quality of books or literature collections. Bibliometric methods are used in science mapping to determine the relationships between disciplines, fields, specializations, and individual research. Results comparable to geographic maps were represented spatially [42]. According to Aidi Ahmi, bibliometric analysis is one of the most popular methods for determining research patterns and trends [43]. Publications can be classified by year, author, affiliation, or country to discover patterns. Furthermore, journals can be evaluated by assessing the impact and effectiveness through metrics, such as citation count, and annual citation rate, as well as h and g indices. Furthermore, the current level of advancement in publications can be represented by several indicators, namely bibliographic relatedness, co-authorship, co-citation, and the formation of keywords or concepts. The increased use of bibliometric analysis in research has been due to the easy accessibility of academic data from academic databases. In this case, this review uses the Scopus database. Tools, such as Bibliomagika [44] and OpenRefine facilitate cleaning and harmonizing to obtain genuinely accurate data [45]. In addition, the Biblioshiny analysis tool [46] supports the presentation of review data as being more exciting and comprehensive.

3.2. Data collection

The data was acquired from the Scopus database on November 10, 2023. Scopus is a highly regarded abstract and citation database for academic publications, known for frequent updates and extensive coverage. It is widely used and often preferred over other databases, such as Google Scholar and Web of Science [47,48]. Scopus includes a vast collection of more than 45,800 source titles from over 7,000 publishers. It is widely acknowledged for extensive coverage of renowned research [49]. All articles related to research on "adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns" can be found using the search menu based on advanced settings in the title, abstract, and keywords.

To make the search results as desired, the keywords used were classified into four sections, namely "adoption or use," "web 2.0", "election," and "campaign," as shown in Table 2. To capture the latest trends in research on the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns, the search for publication years was refined from 2005 to 2023 (until November 2023), as shown in Table 3. The research selected 2005, which was considered the beginning of the development of Web 2.0 in general, not only for election campaigns but various related sectors. In addition, the document types selected were only articles. Some articles that were considered irrelevant, such as bibliometric, SLR, and meta-analysis types were excluded from this review. The initial data search results amounted to 1713 articles. After excluding years, document types, and irrelevant documents, the remaining data amounted to 1117 articles for further analysis, as shown in Fig. 1.

Table 2.

Search string.

Keyword	Justification
“Adopt∗” OR “Use∗”	To Identify Adoption or Use
“Web 2.0” OR “Social media” OR “Social platform” OR “Digital media” OR “Social Network” OR “Social Network Site∗” OR “SNS” OR “Digital Democracy” OR “High-Tech” OR “New Information and Communication Technology” OR “Information technology” OR “New Media” OR “Blog∗” OR “Mashup∗” OR “Twitter” OR “Facebook” OR “Instagram” OR “LinkedIn” OR “MySpace” OR “WhatsApp” OR “Blog” OR “YouTube” OR “Flickr” OR “RSS” OR “RSS Feed∗” OR “RDF Feed∗” OR “Delicious” OR “Weibo” OR “Pinterest”	To Identify literature on Web 2.0
“Election∗”	To identify literature on the type of Election
“Campaign∗”	To Identify literature on campaign

Table 3.

The criteria of inclusion and exclusion.

Criteria	Inclusion	Exclusion
Year	2005–2023	–
Document Type	Journal Article	Review articles, book chapters, books, conference proceedings
Language	English	Non-English
Topic	Relevant to the adoption and use of Web 2.0 for election campaign	Irrelevant to the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaign

Fig. 1.

Search strategy flowchart.

Source: (Zakaria et al., 2021)

3.3. Data analysis

Table 4 summarizes research data extracted from Scopus on the adoption and use of social media in global election campaigns. This database comprised 1,117 documents from 2005 to 2023, published in 471 sources, with all document types being articles (n = 1117). The accumulated documents had a yearly expansion rate of 22.86 %, while the mean number of references per document was 21.53. In total, research sources had 48,284 references. Furthermore, these 1,117 documents comprised 970 indices along 2,274 author's keywords. The data extraction yielded 279 publications authored by a single individual, while 1,953 were found to have contributed to research with multiple authors. The global collaboration level among this work's authors was 17.28 %.

Table 4.

Main information data.

No	Description	Results
MAIN INFORMATION ABOUT DATA
1.	Timespan	2005:2023
2.	Sources (Journals, Books, etc)	471
3.	Documents	1117
4.	Annual Growth Rate %	22.86
5.	Document Average Age	5.71
6.	Average citations per doc	21.53
7.	References	48284
DOCUMENT CONTENTS
8.	Keywords Plus (ID)	973
9.	Author's Keywords (DE)	2264
AUTHORS
10.	Authors	2232
11.	Authors of single-authored docs	279
AUTHORS COLLABORATION
12.	Single-authored docs	302
13.	Co-Authors per Doc	2.49
14.	International co-authorships %	17.28
DOCUMENT TYPES
15.	Article	1117

Before conducting data analysis using Biblioshiny, the data were cleaned. These processes are indispensable components of bibliometric analysis, and ensure the accuracy and dependability of the results. In this research, two recommended tools were used, namely OpenRefine and Bibliomagika. These tools help organize and purify unorganized data, including keywords, author names, affiliations, and other critical bibliographic details. This was followed by the selection of essential files for the cleaning process. The clustering tool provides various functions and methods to identify and modify fields containing keywords, author names, affiliations, and other relevant information. OpenRefine was an indispensable instrument during this procedure, facilitating data standardization and increasing precision efficiently.

While Bibliomagika is also available as analysis tool, the facility was only used to identify missing data, such as author name, country status, and author affiliation. This process was conducted annually to ensure more detailed cleaning and harmonization.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Annual publication trends

The growth pattern and popularity of the research subject can be observed by examining documents using publication year [43]. Table 5 shows the publication of annual review articles, which contained information on performance analysis (citation-related metrics and citation and publication-related metrics) of scientific journals. Research in this area in 2005 was represented by the work of Williams et al., Dányi & Galácz, and Lusoli & Ward [[50], [51], [52]]. The growth rate of academic articles published from 2005 to November 2023 was 22.86 % per year, as shown in Fig. 2.

Table 5.

Publication year.

Year	TP	%	NCP	TC	C/P	h	g
2005	3	0.27 %	3	126	42.00	3	3
2006	4	0.36 %	4	80	20.00	3	4
2007	6	0.54 %	5	190	31.67	5	6
2008	13	1.16 %	12	490	37.69	8	13
2009	15	1.34 %	15	562	37.47	10	15
2010	16	1.43 %	16	641	40.06	11	16
2011	18	1.61 %	17	521	28.94	12	18
2012	25	2.24 %	24	1478	59.12	15	25
2013	48	4.30 %	46	2702	56.29	20	48
2014	46	4.12 %	45	2398	52.13	25	46
2015	51	4.57 %	47	2111	41.39	21	45
2016	67	6.00 %	65	2101	31.36	25	44
2017	92	8.24 %	86	2972	32.30	28	53
2018	88	7.88 %	82	2812	31.95	23	52
2019	102	9.13 %	88	1499	14.70	18	35
2020	113	10.12 %	101	1791	15.85	19	39
2021	141	12.62 %	119	1049	7.44	15	24
2022	147	13.16 %	91	397	2.70	9	13
2023 (till November)	122	10.92 %	48	133	1.09	6	7
Total	1117	100.00 %	914	24053	21.53

Notes: TP = total number of publications; NCP = number of cited publications; TC = total citations; C/P = average citations per publication; h = h-index; and g = g-index.

Fig. 2.

Total number of publications.

Table 5 shows that the highest publications in Web 2.0 adoption and use in election campaigns occurred in 2021 and 2022, with 141 and 147 articles, respectively. These conditions were impacted by the global population's issues, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has significantly affected various sectors in many countries worldwide, disrupting everyday life activities and changing the mechanics of the electoral process, including campaigning procedures. In general, the year-on-year increasing trend in Table 5 shows the growing interest of the academic community in this topic. However, while the number of publications continues to increase, the ratio of citations per publication (C/P) shows considerable variation, specifically in recent years. In 2022 and 2023, despite the high number of publications, the C/P ratio was relatively low, showing that new publications take time to gain significant attention from the academic community. This phenomenon suggests that an increase in the number of publications does not always correlate directly with academic impact, as measured by citations. Therefore, there is a need for further analysis of the factors influencing this variation, such as the relevance of research topics or changes in journal publishing policies.

4.2. Relevant sources

A grand number of 1,117 articles were published across many publications. Table 6 and Fig. 3 show the publication analysis by a source using the downloaded data. For simplicity, a summary of twenty leading journals with at least more than five published articles was presented. Journal of Information Technology and Politics, published by Routledge, had the highest number of publications, with a total of 59. This was followed by Information Communication and Society, New Media and Society, Journal of Political Marketing, as well as Social Media and Society.

Table 6.

The most relevant source.

Sources	Q	NP	h	g	m	TC	PY_start
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS	Q1	59	23	40	1.353	1708	2008
INFORMATION COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY	Q1	34	19	34	1.056	1817	2007
NEW MEDIA AND SOCIETY	Q1	30	20	30	1.250	2207	2009
JOURNAL OF POLITICAL MARKETING	Q1	30	11	19	0.786	389	2011
SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIETY	Q1	26	13	23	1.444	569	2016
PROFESIONAL DE LA INFORMACION	Q1	22	10	22	1.250	490	2017
COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY	Q1	19	8	13	0.727	189	2014
POLITICAL COMMUNICATION	Q1	18	12	18	0.857	1081	2011
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRESS/POLITICS	Q1	16	11	16	0.647	695	2008
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION	Q1	14	6	12	0.600	154	2015
PLOS ONE	Q1	13	7	13	0.875	247	2017
OBSERVATORIO	Q3	13	5	7	0.556	53	2016
SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPUTER REVIEW	Q1	12	10	12	0.556	846	2007
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION	Q1	12	9	12	0.600	854	2010
FIRST MONDAY	Q2	12	6	12	0.375	343	2009
ONLINE INFORMATION REVIEW	Q1	10	7	10	0.467	205	2010
INFORMATION POLITY	Q2	8	5	8	0.250	227	2005
JOURNALISM PRACTICE	Q1	8	5	8	0.385	417	2012
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION	Q1	8	5	8	0.625	122	2017
PARTY POLITICS	Q1	8	5	8	0.417	408	2013

Notes: Q = quartile; NP = number of publications; h = h-index; g = g-index; m = m-index; TC = total citations.

Fig. 3.

The most relevant sources.

Information related to this source showed that the quality and impact of published articles are measured not only through the number of publications but also using other metrics, such as h-index and g-index. Although Information Communication and Society had a higher number of publications, New Media and Society stands out with a higher h-index and g-index. This result showed that articles published in this journal have a significant influence on academic circles in terms of quantity, quality (number of citations), and citation distribution. Similarly, social media and society, despite having fewer publications, have the highest m-index, reflecting productivity and high impact in a relatively short time. This shows that while publication count is an important indicator, other metrics, such as h-index, g-index, and m-index provide a more comprehensive picture of the quality and academic impact of publications.

4.3. Global citation of the document

Table 7 shows the most cited articles globally and locally. The popularity of article popularity is determined by the number of citations [53]. Global citations usually show the annual frequency each time the data is downloaded. The most cited article was Barbera, which discussed online behavior during the 2012 US presidential campaign on Twitter [54]. This shows how social media can be a powerful political analysis tool, with 441 citations. Bakir & McStay, with 434 citations, was the second most cited article discussing the contemporary fake news phenomenon on Facebook [55], which is becoming increasingly relevant in this digital age. The third article, Enli & Skogerbø, with 422 citations, explored the purpose of politicians using Facebook and Twitter during election campaigns [56], showing changing political communication strategies in the digital age. The significant influence of these articles was shown by the high citation counts and contribution to shaping academic and practical discussions on digital politics and communication.

Table 7.

Document titles and authors are included in global citations.

Document	Title	Source	Year	Global Citations
PABLO BARBERÁ, 2015	Birds of the same feather tweet together: Bayesian ideal point estimation using Twitter data	Political Analysis	2015	441
VIAN BAKIR, 2018	Fake News and The Economy of Emotions: Problems, causes, solutions	Digital Journalism	2018	434
GUNN SARA ENLI, 2013	Personalized campaigns in party-centered politics: Twitter and Facebook as arenas for political communication	Information Communication and Society	2013	422
XICHEN ZHANG, 2020	An overview of online fake news: Characterization, detection, and discussion	Information Processing and Management	2020	410
ANDERS OLOF LARSSON, 2012	Studying political microblogging: Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign	New Media and Society	2012	386
ANDREA CERON, 2014	Every tweet counts? How sentiment analysis of social media can improve our knowledge of citizens' political preferences with an application to Italy and France	New Media and Society	2014	366
GUNN ENLI, 2017	Twitter as arena for the authentic outsider: exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election	European Journal of Communication	2017	340
DANIELA V DIMITROVA, 2014	The Effects of Digital Media on Political Knowledge and Participation in Election Campaigns: Evidence From Panel Data	Communication Research	2014	310
MARCEL BROERSMA, 2012	Social media as beat: Tweets as a news source during the 2010 British and Dutch election	Journalism Practice	2012	294
TODD GRAHAM, 2013	Between broadcasting political messages and interacting with voters: The use of Twitter during the 2010 UK general election campaign	Information Communication and Society	2013	264

4.4. Productive author

Fig. 4 shows the chronological evolution of the author's contributions. The line graph shows the historical trajectory, while the magnitude of the bubbles correlates to the annual volume of documents produced. Anders Olof Larsson, Uta Russman, Darren G Lilleker, Marton Bene, and Tomas Baviera made significant contributions to the advancement of research in Web 2.0 for worldwide political campaigns. Darren G. Lilleker started research in this area in 2009 with the theme "Building an architecture of participation? Political parties and Web 2.0 in Britain" [57]. This was followed by Anders Olof Larsson in 2012, with the theme “Studying political microblogging: Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign” [58].

Fig. 4.

Authors with publications.

This graphical analysis also shows the evolution of leading authors' contributions, providing deeper insight into the direction and focus of the research. For example, Anders Olof Larsson and Darren G. Lilleker were instrumental in initiating research in Web 2.0 and global political campaigns and continued the advancement with significant publications in subsequent years. The continuity of these contributions reflects the commitment to exploring this topic, providing a solid foundation for other research in similar areas. The increased contribution of Marton Bene and Tomas Baviera showed the possible shift of research focus based on global trends and the latest technological developments. This trend shows individual contributions and growth in the field, as well as the enrichment of the different perspectives of research.

4.5. The contribution of countries and institutions

Fig. 5 shows a Sankey diagram, a three-plane plot of the correlation between articles provided by region (country), author, and the keywords used in the research on the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns. The leftmost column of the diagram shows the counties actively engaged and the names of authors from the regions (countries) are represented in the middle column. The three sectors are visually represented, which aids in forming and comprehending the relationship. Therefore, Spain, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States are the countries that contributed to this research. Anders Olof Larsson, Vinte Fenoll, Tomas Baviera, Andrea Ceron, and Laura Alonso Munoz were the top five authors who discussed research related to Web 2.0 and electoral campaigns under the themes of "political communication," "social media," "Facebook," "Twitter," "electoral campaign," "internet" and "social network."

Fig. 5.

Three-field plot (Sankey diagram).

The United States was the most relevant country, with 6,207 citations, as shown in Table 8. This is supported by the number of research conducted on topics related to Web 2.0 in the context of presidential election in the United States. The United Kingdom and Netherlands have 2777 and 1913 citations, respectively. According to analysis, some European countries, such as Norway, Germany, Spain, Canada, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark are among the top 10 countries that have significantly contributed to adopting Web 2.0 usage for election campaigns. Several Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Japan, India, and Korea, have also contributed to research on adopting and using Web 2.0 for election campaigns.

Table 8.

The 25 most frequently cited countries/regions in Web 2.0 adoption in election campaigns.

Country	TC	Average Article Citations
USA	6207	35.47
UNITED KINGDOM	2777	31.20
NETHERLANDS	1913	68.32
NORWAY	1228	64.63
GERMANY	1159	25.76
SPAIN	1081	13.18
CANADA	1028	38.07
ITALY	908	26.71
SWEDEN	665	60.45
DENMARK	456	50.67
AUSTRALIA	413	18.77
AUSTRIA	297	19.80
BELGIUM	287	26.09
FINLAND	266	26.60
ISRAEL	244	12.20
FRANCE	194	27.71
INDONESIA	179	12.79
JAPAN	179	35.80
INDIA	165	7.17
KOREA	102	9.27

The most relevant affiliations, co-authorships, and collaborations are shown in Fig. 6. This list includes the ten leading institutions that contributed the most to research on the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns. In the United States, Syracuse University had the best, with 23 articles, followed by 22 for Bournemouth University, UK. Both showed the ability to produce high-quality research relevant to the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in political campaigns. This result reflects an academic environment that supports cross-disciplinary collaboration and allows collaboration with other universities. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, in third place (21 articles), also showed the important influence of German research institutions on the global discussion on digital politics. In general, the active participation of these leading universities showed that research on Web 2.0 in the context of politics was a highly relevant topic that received widespread attention in different parts of the world, supported by a solid academic infrastructure and international collaboration.

Fig. 6.

Most relevant affiliation.

4.6. Subject and themes

Keywordanalysis of published articles allows for identifying popular issues and significant academic topics. This analysis aimed to investigate keywords as clues to issues and trends in the field. The 1117 articles discussing the adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns used common keywords, as shown in the world cloud keywords in Fig. 7. Furthermore, a topic analysis was conducted using keywords writers identified from the data by co-occurrence analysis (overlay visualization) and the theme map.

Fig. 7.

Word cloud-keywords.

Fig. 7 shows that the keywords election, politics, human, sentiment analysis, Internet, election campaign, and the presidential election were most frequently used in articles on this topic over 18 years. From 2005 to 2016, most of the keywords showed a trend in interest in "internet," "web 2.0", "social networking," and "campaign" or "online campaign" has increased and continues to grow, the research focus began to expand on "blog," "youtube" and "new media" platforms. Similarly, social media trends dominated Web 2.0 adoption and use for election campaigns from 2017 to 2019, specifically on the Facebook and Twitter platforms, concerning political communication, parties, and participation (see Fig. 8).

Fig. 8.

Co-occuration analysis.

The high increase of interest in "social media" themes—part of Web 2.0 applications—from 2019, 2020, and beyond tends to be influenced by pandemic conditions. This is evident in the topics related to "Covid-19" and the challenges of "fake news," "misinformation," and "disinformation." Every popular topic has reason to support increased research interest, specifically as social media has become essential to the existence of society and even impacts politics.

In Fig. 9, the thematic map shows a comprehensive insight into the main topics and the relationships with others, such as the various topics developed through the author's keywords and the relationships in the thematic analysis. These topics were differentiated by density and centrality. The horizontal and vertical axis shows centrality and density. According to Esfahani et al., centrality measures the degree of correlation between different subjects, while density measures compactness between nodes [59]. These two characteristics measure the development and relevance of a particular topic. The upper right quadrant represents motives related to the motor topics, which stand out for the centrality and complexity, showing the high development and importance of the subjects. This rubric examines the concepts of "social media," "social networks," and "election campaigns."

Fig. 9.

Thematic map.

The left quadrant showed the developing or fading topics, which do not thrive due to a lack of centrality and density. Therefore, topics, such as "electoral geography," "party politics," "electoral system," and "economic and social effects" may be the subject of future research.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, the concept of "adoption and use of Web 2.0 in election campaigns" was researched for more than 18 years. However, no research combined previous results for use by practitioners and policymakers. Based on this situation, all the articles on developing websites were evaluated, specifically Web 2.0, used for election campaigns in various fields. Bibliometric analysis was used to comprehensively assess scholarly publications on adopting and using Web 2.0 for election campaigns since the inception in 2004. The research examined the leading scholars who addressed these topics in literature.

For this research, the Scopus database yielded 1117 documents. The first publication in this context was developed in 2005, initiating interest in adopting and using Web 2.0 for election campaigns. Research in this area has experienced an exponential increase. However, significant numbers occurred during the pandemic, which began in 2020. This was due to the increased use of Web 2.0 for global election campaigns to reduce the risk of exposure to the deadly virus. In addition, the result showed appropriate publishing sources, such as the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Information Communication and Society, and New Media and Society, as well as Political Marketing. This result provided essential guidance for research regarding which publishing sources were most suitable for adopting and using Web 2.0 for election campaigns. Analysis showed that Griffiths had the highest citation contribution in this context. The primary area of Griffiths' research, "Birds of the same feather tweet together: Bayesian ideal point estimation using Twitter data," significantly influenced the development of research in this field.

Anders Olof Larsson and Uta Russman significantly influenced Web 2.0 adoption and usage research. However, Darren G. Lilleker, one of the top 10 contributing authors, started the research first in 2009. These three authors focused on developing big data research on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Furthermore, the result of this research showed that the United States was the leading nation in this field of research, with Syracuse University topping the list due to contribution and relevance. The research showed that social media networking was a substantial part of the adoption and use of Web 2.0 for election campaigns, compared to other types, such as blogs, wikis, or Flickr. In addition, the field of research evolved significantly, specifically during the pandemic, with new factors, such as "electoral geography," "party politics," and "electoral system." These buzzwords were crucial to understanding the many facets of the adoption and use of Web 2.0 for election campaigns.

6. Limitation of the research

This research exclusively used the Scopus database as the data list, thereby excluding others. Although the Scopus data source is one of the largest reputable databases, collecting data from Web of Science, Pubmed, and other platforms, would have made significant progress in this research.

7. Future research

Research related to Web 2.0 applications in the context of elections, specifically the use during campaign stage, is still a hotly debated issue. Further research is needed to identify dimensions that have not been widely explored, such as the effectiveness of Web 2.0 for election campaigns over time, as well as comparisons between countries. Furthermore, the countries that dominate research in this area have high democracy indices, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, and others. Information from other parts of the world is essential to determine the method adopted by other countries with medium and low levels of democracy to use Web 2.0.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Zuhairi Sanofi: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Validation, Software, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Evie Ariadne Shinta Dewi: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis. Dian Wardiana Sjuchro: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Hadi Suprapto Arifin: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation.

Ethics approval

This study did not require review or approval by an ethics committee because it did not involve experiments with animals or humans.

Data availability statement

Data will be made available upon request.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.