Evaluating the Publicness Dimension of Public Space with Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Discussions about the publicness of public spaces have started to take place more in the literature in recent years, depending on the privatization of urban spaces all over the world, especially after 1980. The wide scope of the subject and the fact that it is studied in other fields of social and human science other than spatial planning and design offers a very broad perspective. This diversity and richness of information bring some difficulties in determining and systematizing the information on priority fields of study. In this context two research questions emerged (1) what are the prevailing themes related to the publicness of public spaces and (2) how did these themes come together? In this study, the “all open access” SCOPUS Database and VOSviewer were used to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the publicness of public space documents. In this context, co-word analysis which is accepted as one of techniques of the bibliometric analysis has been applied. As a result of the analysis, themes (social media, public sphere, public, public art, etc.) and some subthemes related to the publicness of the public space were found and the relationship of these themes with each other was determined and visually displayed. Afterward, it was examined how these themes are handled in the literature. As a result, a conceptual layout has been created to guide the researchers who study the publicness of public space.