2004
Volume 6, Issue 1
  • E-ISSN: 2665-9085

Abstract

The use of computational methods for text analysis has been rapidly gaining a foothold in computational social science. Yet, little is known about the reporting practices of the software tools utilised in this field. This research note investigates the factors influencing the likelihood of software tools being mentioned in social science journal articles. To this end, we reviewed 406 journal articles, representing all computational text analysis articles published in top social science journals between 2016 and 2020, and identified all software tools reported. We explore both article-level and tool-level characteristics and investigate their association with the mentioning of software tools. Our findings indicate a consistent pattern of tool reporting across time and disciplines, while authors who detail methodological validation within their papers are more inclined to mention the software tools employed. Furthermore, we observe that software tools with greater accessibility tend to receive more frequent mentions, while the maintenance status of the tools does not significantly impact their frequency of being mentioned. We discuss the implications of these results for the further development of computational text analysis in social science and especially communication research.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2024.1.6.STEC
2024-01-01
2025-02-20
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2024.1.6.STEC
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): computational text analysis; open science; software tool reporting
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error