국내 콘텐츠 산업 연구 경향 분석: 체계적 문헌고찰과 토픽모델링을 중심으로 = An Analysis of Research Trends in Korea's Content Industry: Focusing on a Systematic Literature Review and Topic Modeling

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study conducts a systematic literature review of 416 KCI-indexed articles on the content industry in Korea published between 2004 and 2026, with the aim of identifying the field’s developmental trajectory and structural characteristics. The analysis focuses on annual publication trends, business subdomains, research methods, and levels of analysis, while Structural Topic Modeling (STM) is employed as a supplementary tool to validate the consistency of the manual classification. The results show that research on the Korean content industry has steadily accumulated since 2004, with the largest share concentrated in the period after 2021 (146 articles, 35.1%). In terms of business subdomains, the literature is most heavily concentrated on technological innovation and convergence (51.0%), followed by policy and institutions (21.4%), exports and internationalization (14.4%), regional industry and clusters (13.5%), investment, finance, and firm performance (12.7%), platforms and distribution (11.1%), and labor and human resources (10.6%). Thematic shifts over time reveal a progression from early studies on conceptualization and policy legitimation, to expansion into regional, genre-based, and ecosystem-centered discussions, to the rise of digital platforms and distributional change, and more recently to the growing complexity of globalization, artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and labor issues. In methodological terms, literature-, theory-, and policy-oriented analyses (42.5%) dominate the field and case-based and qualitative studies (40.9%), whereas quantitative empirical research (16.6%) remains relatively limited. In addition, macro- and meso-level analyses outweigh micro-level studies dealing with firm strategy, revenue structures, creator labor, and value distribution. The supplementary STM results likewise indicate relatively strong concentrations in topics related to technological change, policy, and internationalization, broadly supporting the manual classification. Overall, the findings suggest that research on the Korean content industry needs to move beyond macro-level policy and technology-centered explanations toward more fine-grained analyses of business models, platform power, value distribution, and creator labor within the industry.