Ali Shaghaghi; Saeid Asadi; Ali Sharafi
Abstract
Aim: The aim of this research is to study the place of Middle Eastern countries and to determine the informationally powerful, dependent, and weak states, based on the scientific production and cooperation quartile, in the geopolitics of information. Method: This research is a scientometric one ...
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Aim: The aim of this research is to study the place of Middle Eastern countries and to determine the informationally powerful, dependent, and weak states, based on the scientific production and cooperation quartile, in the geopolitics of information. Method: This research is a scientometric one and objectively applied which has been conducted using documentary methods and content analysis. The research community consists of 16 Middle Eastern countries which have been studied based on their regional and trans-regional scientific production and cooperation between the years 2008 and 2017. The data was extracted from the scopus, the world bank and the Palestine center for statistics databases, and Excel and SPSS software were used for the data analysis. Findings: According to the findings, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt, respectively, are placed the first to fourth in the Middle Eastern geopolitics of information, and by allocating more than 75% of the quartile (Q3) indicators are among the most powerful information countries. The countries, Israel, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, and Palestine respectively, are placed fifth to twelfth in the Middle East, and with allocating 25 to 50 percent of the quartile (Q2) indicators make up the community of dependent countries. The four countries of Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, ranked thirteenth to sixteenths in the Middle Eastern geopolitics of information, with assigning 25 percent of the quartile (Q1) indicators form the Middle Eastern weak countries. The findings also show that there is a huge gap between the status of powerful, dependent, and weak Middle Eastern information countries (between the first, second, and third quarters) in the geopolitics of information. Innovation/ value: The value of this research is in determining the powerful, dependent and weak Middle Eastern information countries in the geopolitics of information in terms of innovation and also in being the beginning point of attracting the attention of politicians, researchers and specialists in fields of information science and knowledge, scientometrics, political science, communication science, management, and sociology to conduct better research in the field of geopolitics of information and to identify its components.
