Current trends in social media research in higher education: An analysis of master theses and Ph.D. dissertations in Turkey

Abstract

This article provides the general profile of Master theses and Ph.D. dissertations focusing on Social Media in the Major Field of Communication Sciences in Turkey. In the scope of this study all Master theses and Ph.D. dissertations that have been allowed to access in Council of Higher Education National Theses Center Database have been scanned with the key word “social media” under the major field of Communication Studies. Subsequently 77 Master theses and 22 doctoral dissertations have been included into the study. For the purposes of the study the authors chose to use content analysis to study empirical documentation. Within this context each thesis and dissertation was categorized in terms of year of approval authorship institution affiliation research topics social media type research design sampling methods data collection and data analysis methods. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.