Research topics, as indicators of the profession’s development, are central to the
evaluation of academic practices in communication research. To investigate the
main topics in communication field, we trace the development of research topics
since the 1987 to 2017 by evaluating 560 articles from Mass Communication Research
journals found by the National Chengchi University. The relevant variables include
author, institution, year of publication, number of page, language, and number of
citation, research area, method, media studied, and region. Topic modeling reveals a
concentrated area like mass communication and audience analysis during the first
30 years. However a broad variety and thus represent the field has been changed as a
whole for the late 20years. Although our discipline is strongly interconnected with the
changing media landscape, results show that communication research is characterized
by high consistency. Although they have not provoked a revolutionary change, Internet
and new media technology have become the most monitored media, parallel to—not
displacing—classic media such as newspapers and TV.