Tracing the Impact of Social Media on Social Cognition

Abstract

The words “misinformation,” “fake news,” and “post-truth” have filled social media posts. It is a serious social threat, especially post COVID-19. In this chapter, the authors provide bibliometric analysis of research on social media and its impact on social cognition. This can be useful for identifying gaps for future research in the field. Publication data was obtained from the Web of Science database using a search algorithm. A total of 22,935 articles were extracted, and 22,909 eligible articles were included for analysis. Document co-citation analysis revealed that themes on social engagement, fake news, problematic social media use, and healthcare emerged as trends on shaping the social cognition through social media. Further, India achieved 9th position on the list based on citations and 8th on centrality and did not appear on any of the top-10 lists based on Burst value and Sigma. This indicates that neither sudden trend-setting articles nor scientific novelty-based articles have been published in this domain thus far. There is a considerable research gap in India to counter misinformation.