The big picture on Instagram research: Insights from a bibliometric analysis

Instagram is a leading social network for information sharing and communication. Rigorous studies are missing that leverage bibliometric techniques to comprehensively portray the field. To fill this knowledge gap, this study carries out a holistic bibliometric and network analysis of Instagram research, illustrating the dynamic evolution from 2013 to 2021. On the basis of 2,242 publications from the Web of Science database, which were authored by 6,206 researchers, this study identifies the most prominent scholars and articles in the literature. Furthermore, it analyzes diverse bibliometric networks, such as citation, co-citation, collaboration and keyword cooccurrence networks, and presents two intellectual structure maps (i.e., conceptual structure map, thematic map). The results indicate that the number of academic studies about Instagram has been growing significantly over time and that the dominant topics are the psychological motivation of Instagram use, the COVID-19 pandemic, Instagram marketing, social media platforms, and healthcare.

Automated summary

This study conducted a comprehensive analysis of Instagram research using bibliometric techniques. The results showed a significant growth in the number of academic studies about Instagram and identified the prominent topics in the field.