Research trends in cybercrime victimization during 2010–2020: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Research on cybercrime victimization is relatively diversified; however, no bibliometric study has been found to introduce the panorama of this subject. The current study aims to address this research gap by performing a bibliometric analysis of 387 Social Science Citation Index articles relevant to cybercrime victimization from Web of Science database during the period of 2010–2020. The purpose of the article is to examine the research trend and distribution of publications by five main fields, including time, productive authors, prominent sources, active institutions, and leading countries/regions. Furthermore, this study aims to determine the global collaborations and current gaps in research of cybercrime victimization. Findings indicated the decidedly upward trend of publications in the given period. The USA and its authors and institutions were likely to connect widely and took a crucial position in research of cybercrime victimization. Cyberbullying was identified as the most concerned issue over the years and cyber interpersonal crimes had the large number of research comparing to cyber-dependent crimes. Future research is suggested to concern more about sample of the elder and collect data in different countries which are not only European countries or the USA. Cross-nation research in less popular continents in research map was recommended to be conducted more. This paper contributed an overview of scholarly status of cybercrime victimization through statistical evidence and visual findings; assisted researchers to optimize their own research direction; and supported authors and institutions to build strategies for research collaboration.