Word Cloud Analysis of Special Issues in Maritime Transportation Journals

Abstract

Due to the dynamic structure of maritime transportation, research in this field must proceed in parallel with current sectoral developments. In this sense, the regular issues of maritime transportation-themed academic journals undoubtedly contribute to sectoral development. However, unlike regular issues, journal special issues, which direct the research focus of the scientific community with thematic calls that reflect sectoral development, undertake a valuable function in order to produce rapid scientific solutions to the sectoral needs. Therefore, an examination of the articles brought together in special issues can be used to follow the emerging themes in the relevant field. To conduct word cloud analysis on special topics in maritime transportation-related journals, 353 articles in 73 special issues of 17 journals published between 2013-2023 were compiled. By interpreting the word clouds obtained from the titles and keywords of relevant publications, the themes that came to the fore were identified. Findings show that words related to environmental sustainability, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, risk management and network design are the prominent themes. Besides demonstrating the trends in maritime transportation research, this article also proposes a method to conduct a word cloud-based preliminary analysis, aiding researchers in detecting current themes to direct their academic focus.

Keywords

• Maritime Transportation
• Special Issues
• Word Cloud

References

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