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A Bibliometric Analysis of the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Social Sciences

Author

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  • Tuba Bircan

    (Interface Demography, Department of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 5, 1050 Brussels, Belgium)

  • Almila Alkim Akdag Salah

    (Human-Centered Computing Group, Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Buys Ballotgebouw (BBG) 422, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CM Utrecht, The Netherlands)

Abstract

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analysis algorithms is complementary to theory-driven analysis approaches and becoming more popular also in social sciences. This paper describes the use of Big Data and computational approaches in social sciences by bibliometric analyses of articles indexed between 2015 and 2020 in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) of the Web of Science repository. We have analysed especially the recent research direction called Computational Social Sciences (CSS) that bridges computer analytical approaches with social science challenges, generating new methodologies of Big Data and AI analytics for social sciences. The results indicate that AI and Big Data practices are not confined to CSS only and are diffused in a wide variety of disciplines under Social Sciences and are made use of in many main research lines as well. Thus, the anticipated overlap between the Social Sciences & AI specialization and CSS has yet to be crystallised. Moreover, the impact of computational social science studies is not permeated to social science citation networks yet. Lastly, we demonstrate that the AI and Big Data publications that appear under the SSCI index are more oriented towards computational studies than addressing social science concepts, concerns, and challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Tuba Bircan & Almila Alkim Akdag Salah, 2022. "A Bibliometric Analysis of the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Social Sciences," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(23), pages 1-17, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:10:y:2022:i:23:p:4398-:d:980056
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    References listed on IDEAS

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