This document summarizes a study analyzing keywords and topics in new media research articles from February to August 2012. It finds that while terms like "computer" were previously common, newer terms like "multimedia" and references to platforms like "YouTube" are now frequent. The study aims to identify trends over time in how researchers describe new media to attract broad audiences. Limitations include a small data set and potential issues with duplicate words. Further analysis over longer periods is recommended.

1. New Media Research
Trends in 2012
Brittany Black & Ashley Hebler
S

2. Research Questions
S RQ1: Do new media researchers favor certain title or
keyword terms over others? And, if so, which ones?
S RQ2: Have specific new media topics been covered more
frequently than others in the published journals during the
past six months? If so, which ones?

3. Theory
S Diffusion of Innovations

4. Literature Review
S ‘94-’99: 3.9% of articles published in the five journals analyzed
focused on Internet based research.
Tomasello (2001)
S ’96-’00: Necessary to use existing communication concepts
and theories to explain and predict the rapid changes relating
to the Internet and that if a new medium emerges.
Kim and Weaver (2001)
S ’90-’06: Most frequently used words in new media research are
(in order, starting with most frequent) “internet,” “computers,”
“digital,” “web/www,” and “online”
(Tomasello, et al., 2010).

5. Method
S Content Analysis
S Bibliometric analysis
S New Media & Society Journal
S February 2012 to August 2012
S No July or April
S 65 total articles

6. Results

7. Results

8. Discussion
S “There is a tendency for researchers to favor generally
descriptive keywords...suggests a desire by these authors to
attract the attention of the broadest audience possible in order
to enhance the principle of survival.” -Tomasello et al. (2010)
S Computer does not seem to be favored by researchers
anymore, and has now been replaced with terms such as
multimedia, new media/ communication.
S Broad range of topics

9. Limitations
S Lack of data
S More time is needed to find trends in data
S Duplicate Words
S May have skewed results.

10. Future Research
S Future studies should take the
keywords that emerged from this study
and track their use in future research
articles to analyze adoption rates by
applying the diffusion of innovations s-
curve.
S Evaluating multiple journals to add
more complexity to the study.

11. Conclusion
S There are common terms still being used as well as new
terms appearing in research
Then Now
• Computer • Multimedia
• Virtual • YouTube