Exploring the Representation of the Field of Communication in Academic Publishing: A Content Analysis of the Journals of Communication Schools in Turkey

This study aimed to explore the properties of the articles published in the journals of communication schools in Turkey to understand the communication field's general framework as represented in these journals. These properties include their subdisciplines, research methods and techniques, project support, levels of collaboration, and authors' language preferences. For this purpose, all of the articles published between 2016 and 2020 in the journals of the communication schools listed in the Turkish Index (TR Index) were examined via quantitative content analysis. The Turkish Academic Network and Information Center, an institute of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), developed the TR Index. Eleven journals and 1641 articles in total were analyzed within this context. The analysis showed that the majority of the articles published in the journals of communication schools displayed an interdisciplinary approach. The articles that analyzed new media predominantly adopted qualitative methods. In addition, collaborative studies were less than single-authored studies, a very limited number of the studies was supported by a project, and the number of articles written in foreign languages was remarkably few.