A bibliometric study of the scientific production regarding the COVID-19 pandemic published in communication journals edited in Spanish

The article analyzes the scientific production regarding the COVID-19 pandemic published in communication journals edited in Spanish and indexed in the Scimago Journal Ranking (SJR) Scopus in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4, in July, 2022. By conducting a content analysis, we identified: the number of articles, authors and gender, funding, institutional affiliation, and main subject; the differences were established according to quartile and journals. The results show a predominance of articles with two or three authors and a higher presence of women. In terms of institutional affiliation, they are mainly from the universities of Madrid and Barcelona. Regarding the main subjects, we observed the consolidation of digital environments, specially Twitter (now, X) due to its features for quickly sharing and spreading content. It is followed by the conventional news media, disinformation and corporate communication. In conclusion, we can verify that for the editors of Communication journals or the authors themselves it was not a priority issue, and they have shown little interest in publishing about COVID-19 in the lower quartiles. Nevertheless, the best placed journals from the beginning of the pandemic adapted to the situation and were quite prepared to assume the costs incurred by the publication and translation of research articles.