Abstract
Soundscape has been growing steadily as a research field since its interdisciplinary concepts were first introduced about 50 years ago in music theory and acoustic ecology, and it currently affects a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from social sciences to urban planning and noise control engineering. In spite of its strong research appeal, it is not clear what the actual impact and outreach of soundscape science is at a societal level; that is: how soundscape research is received by community. Using the Altmetric database, this review aims to map how and where soundscape research is “mentioned”, considering the number of mentions over time, their geographical spread and effectiveness of publication outlets. Results show that mentions are growing with time, they mostly originate in the United States and the United Kingdom, and they are generated by a limited number of research items.
Highlights
Soundscape represents a paradigm shift in the field of environmental acoustics in that it combines physical, social and psychological approaches to the characterization, management and design of natural and urban sound environments
The concept was introduced in the late Sixties [1,2], significant attention to it has mainly been paid in the last two decades in the field of community noise and environmental acoustics by researchers, and recently by practitioners, including policy makers [3,4]
It is generally assumed that high-level research should pursue a significant societal impact and, being an emerging science, soundscape aims at doing this too [3]
Summary
Soundscape represents a paradigm shift in the field of environmental acoustics in that it combines physical, social and psychological approaches to the characterization, management and design of natural and urban sound environments. The concept was introduced in the late Sixties [1,2], significant attention to it has mainly been paid in the last two decades in the field of community noise and environmental acoustics by researchers, and recently by practitioners, including policy makers [3,4]. Several bibliometric indicators are typically used to measure the impact of a research field. This kind of metrics related to citations counts can only measure the impact on research itself; the research impact on society might not always be necessarily straightforward, while funding bodies (and the public opinion) are increasingly demanding for evidence from scientific projects that lead to positive outcomes going beyond science
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