Investigative journalism: bibliometric, conceptual and intellectual analysis (2000-2020)

Abstract

Investigative journalism social relevance has grown recently. This paper analyses the scientific production on this branch of journalistic activity through articles (N=331) published between 2000 and 2020 in Scopus-indexed journals. A bibliometric study of productivity and performance in the field is carried out, as well as a sociometric analysis of the conceptual (co-word network) and intellectual (co-citation network) structure of the field. The results point to a growing production on the subject, but which shows features of immaturity, especially a dispersion in authorship that indicates that investigative journalism is not a preferred line of work in the discipline. Moreover, scientific production on the subject is concentrated in journalism journals and has not managed to attract the attention of other disciplines. The main topics identified are the role of social media as a source and the impact of investigative journalism on democratic life. Intellectually, the scientific production is supported by studies on the financing of journalism, the journalistic values behind news production and the study of actors and historical structures that influence its activity.

Keywords
Co-citation analysis; Co-word analysis; Reference citation analysis