KMI International Journal of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries
Korea Maritime Institute
Article

Themes and Trends in Global Maritime Journals Using Keyword Network Analysis

Se-Eun Jhang*, Ho-Min Park**, Yaochen Deng***, Sunghwa Lee****
*First author, Korea Maritime & Ocean University, Korea, jhang@kmou.ac.kr
**Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Korea, homin2006@hanmail.net
***Dalian University of Foreign Languages, China, deng_yaochen@163.com
****Corresponding author, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Korea, esunghwa@gmail.com

© Copyright 2021 Korea Maritime Institute. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Nov 12, 2020; Revised: Dec 15, 2020; Accepted: Dec 25, 2020

Published Online: Dec 31, 2020

ABSTRACT

This study identifies research themes and trends of international journal data in global maritime affairs, fisheries, marine and transport policy, and logistics over the last 20 years from 2000 to 2020 using keyword network analysis through degree centrality. This study pays special attention to six different types of patterns through the Delta-C algorithm. First, we discuss highly remarkable research themes that are shared throughout all the three periods defined as Type A. Second, we focus on interest-increased, interest-decreased, and newly emerging research themes shown in the most recent period (the third period) from Type B to Type F. Finally, we show the networks of researchers and the distribution and network visualization of research nations. This study shows two new findings. First, in Type A representing consistently shared themes, the main research themes change from growth and fishery management in fisheries and sustainability and governance in maritime sectors in the 2000s; to growth and aquaculture in fisheries and accessibility, China and sustainability in maritime sectors in the early 2010s; and to aquaculture and growth in fisheries and accessibility, climate change, and China in maritime sectors in the late 2010s. Second, in Type F as new trends, the top 10 keywords in newly issues illustrate that issues surrounding climate change and Green House Gas emission attract more attention in the literature, the subjects of machine learning and artificial Intelligence (AI) become popular in accordance with the development of internet of things (IoT) in the late 2010s, and Belt-Road initiative demonstrates the enlargement of China’s economic potential in the 2010s.

Keywords: international maritime journals; trend analysis; keyword network analysis; degree centrality; Delta-C; algorithm; data; network of researchers