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Review
. 2019 Nov 19;16(22):4577.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16224577.

Diverged Preferences towards Sustainable Development Goals? A Comparison between Academia and the Communication Industry

Shin-Cheng Yeh  1 , Haw-Jeng Chiou  2 , Ai-Wei Wu  1 , Ho-Ching Lee  3 , Homer C Wu  4
Affiliations
Review

Diverged Preferences towards Sustainable Development Goals? A Comparison between Academia and the Communication Industry

Shin-Cheng Yeh et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

To understand how the sustainable development goals (SDGs) are involved and cited in different fields, the current study aimed to explore the key SDGs and SDG-pairs from the viewpoints of academia and the media. The academic publications with SDG(s)-related keywords in the Scopus database and the entry videos of the "2018 SDG Lions" were collected and analyzed through content and network analysis. It was found that SDG 3 and SDG 10 shared the highest preferences in both industries, but apparent gaps happened to SDG 5. The tied frequencies of the possible SDG pairs were also examined, and SDG 3-10 was identified taking the lead in both industries. Network analysis using degree centrality as the vital parameter demonstrated that SDG 8 and SDG 5 has strong connections with several SDGs for the academia and the media, respectively. The SDG-2-6-7 combination or "water-energy-food" nexus was also found the most frequent combination of three SDGs in the academia. Overall, SDG 3 can be treated as a unifying theme when seeking to acquire evidence-based knowledge for integrated implementation of the SDGs. Important implications for policy-making of the SDGs were also discussed.

Keywords: academic publications; health and well-being; inequality; sustainable development goals (SDGs); the media industry.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The flow diagram of the present systematic review study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The number of academic references for each SDG in each year (upper) and the sum from 2015 to 2018 (lower).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The proportion of each SDG’s entries (blue bars and numbers) to shortlists (orange line and numbers) in 2018 SDG Lions.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The comparison of academic (left bar) with communication (right bar) industries about the relevance percentage of the top 10 SDGs in 2018.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The elaborate network graph of 17 SDGs (generated using UCINET).
Figure 6
Figure 6
The network graph is showing SDGs and connections with higher tied frequencies of the academic publications (a) and media videos (b) of SDG-related topics from 2015 to 2018, bigger icons and thicker linkages indicating higher total frequencies of SDG and higher tied frequencies between two SDGs, respectively.
Figure 7
Figure 7
The comparison of academic (black frame) with communication (filled colored grids) industries on the tied frequency of SDG 3 and other SDGs in 2018.
Figure 8
Figure 8
The conceptual location of references related to SDGs and water-energy-food nexus (please see Table 5 for the meaning of the number).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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