A thirty-year retrospective of the Journal of Media Economics: who wrote what, and how?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper provides a content analysis of the published articles in the Journal of Media Economics during the period 1988–2017 and was sparked by the 30th anniversary of the journal. A total of 388 papers were content-analyzed to answer the questions of who wrote what, and how in the journal for the above-mentioned 30 years. Each article was classified based on the number of authors, author’s affiliation (country, region, and educational background), target country and industry analyzed, unit of analysis, theoretical base, methodological approach, data collection method, and time frame of research. The results revealed drastic changes in the composition of authors’ affiliated countries and their educational background. The target country and industry of research, and the level of analysis also changed. On the other hand, theoretical basis and methodological approaches, including data collection methods, did not show much change over time, except for the increase in mathematical modeling papers. The editorship changed from one person trained in journalism school (1988–2005) to co-editors – a communications scholar and an economist (2006–2017) – and the comparison between the two different types of the editorship showed an apparent difference in who wrote what, and how.