The global trends in digital citizenship research: A bibliometric analysis with R program and VosviewerA

In this study, in order to reveal current research trends and suggestions for possible future research trends in digital citizenship (DC) in the field of education, a bibliometric analysis of 387 publications obtained from the WOS collection between 2003 and 2024 (June) was conducted using the VOSviewer and Biblioshiny programs. The research results reveal that digital citizenship research initially progressed with low production, but increased from 2012 onwards and gained momentum after 2019. In general, it is seen that the concept of DC is a young research area in terms of research processes and continues to grow, but the interest in this area is still insufficient in terms of citations. The most influential journals include Comunicar, Learning Media and Technology, and Educational Technology & Society, while Education and Information Technologies is noted for having the highest growth and rising trend. In addition, USA plays a central role in DC studies when the number of connections between countries, publications and citations is taken into account. The most repeated and strongest keywords were digital literacy, media literacy, citizenship, and digital competence. While more space was given to the theoretical foundations of DC in 2019, it has been observed that the scope has expanded a little more in terms of education due to current issues such as Covid 19 or cyberbullying. It is also seen that DC is considered a more "adult" focused concept on the basis of teachers, adolescents, youth, and higher education, and that the younger age group is not given much importance.