Mapping digitally mediated youth community-benefit engagement: a bibliometric analysis of volunteering, service-learning and digital civic participation

Büber-Kaya, H. (2026). Mapping digitally mediated youth community-benefit engagement: a bibliometric analysis of volunteering, service-learning and digital civic participation [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. Open Research Europe, 6, 291. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.24642.1

This study maps research on youth community-benefit engagement – volunteering, service-learning and civically oriented activity – in digitally shaped contexts, under an explicit construct boundary that excludes political participation. It analyses 310 English-language articles and reviews indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (2006-2026), combining performance analysis with co-word and thematic mapping, co-citation analysis, reference publication year spectroscopy and citation-genealogy analysis.

Across four complementary views, service-learning emerges as the principal organisational frame. Digital technology runs through the field as a cross-cutting layer rather than a consolidated theme, and no coherent digital-volunteering theme emerged under the present definition. Data and code are openly deposited on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21433892

Published in the COST Actions gateway and the RELINK for Democracy collection. Supported by COST Action CA23114 RELINK² (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), funded by the European Union. Open peer review is in progress; the article has not yet been peer reviewed.