Global Research Trend of Korean Popular Music: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The goal of this research is to examine the research approaches and trends in Korean popular music (K-pop). This bibliometric study is based on data from the Scopus database over the last ten years (2011–2021). This study examined 327 publications to determine the most prolific nations, authors, organizations, and referenced publications. The most active research publications were discovered to be in South Korea, the United States, and Australia. The most prolific institution has been recognized as Seoul National University (South Korea). The most influential author was determined to be Jin D.Y. Keyword co-occurrence analysis, author and country co-authorship analysis, and bibliographic coupling of documents utilizing the most widely used open-source information visualization technologies. The most productive magazines for K-pop are Kritika Kultura and the International Journal of Communication. This article summarizes the evolution of K-pop research and provides stakeholders with a concise overview of relevant studies and applications of K-pop. To our knowledge, this is the first study of its sort to do a Scopus-based mapping of the ‘K-pop and research’ literature. This will help develop the central theme and establish the scholars’ future research directions.