Smart Researcher: How I Mapped My Citation Landscape

 AI Tools for Literature Review

This blog is an activity assigned by Prof. (Dr.) Dilip Barad as a part of the PhD course to explore AI tools while doing a literature review. During myer's, I was using tools like Elicit AI, Google Scholar, Zotero, Research Rabbit, LitMaps, and Open Alex. Since then, all these and other tools have been upgraded a lot. In this blog, we will present all the necessary details in a concise and engaging manner.

Part 1

Research Rabbit

Main Function:

Visualizing citation networks and helping researchers discover related literature. Its key strength lies in exploring research papers through connections—co-authorship, citations, and topic similarity.

Interface and Usability:

I would not go so far as to say that Research Rabbit offers you a more user-friendly interface. When I first used it two years back, it was easy to use, but now they have added a lot of options, which may confuse you if you have not used any such tools before and directly jump to Research Rabbit. But all of those options are useful if you know what you are doing.

Output of Research Rabbit

While this tool is known for its visualization through graphs, it also excels at providing networks of co-authors and citations, paper collections, paper previews with abstracts, similar work, and early and later works of the field. The option to import data from Zotero is a must-use.

My topic is related to contemporary popular culture and media studies (Japanese anime studies in particular). I had to begin with "Contemporary Popular Culture, Cultural Studies, Media Study, Japanese Anime." 

I also imported the bibliography from Zotero, and the results did not disappoint me. It suggested some works that other tools, like Citation Gecko, were not suggesting.

There are some Limitation of this tools

Lacks full-text access (PDF) (only abstracts and links to publishers); no AI-generated summaries or annotations.  May not cover very recent or obscure papers not indexed in major databases. 

Citation Gecko

• Main Function/Strength:
  Finds papers cited by or citing your seed papers—perfect for citation chaining with customizable control.

• User Interface:
  Functional but less visually modern; basic but effective.
  
  
  

• Outputs:
  Lists of papers with citation links, visualization of networks, and exportable reference lists.

• Search Input Used:
  Popular Culture

• New/Unexpected Resources:
  NO. Not while researching with this keyword/field. Paper Recomendation 

• 
  

• Limitations:
  No rich visual maps like Research Rabbit or Litmaps, minimal UX design. It gives the ooption to import from citation managers but it doesn't work. it aslo has a feature to apply filter but that doesn't work either

LitMaps

Main Function/Strength:

Tracks research over time and creates "live" literature maps; strong for collaborative work.

User Interface:

Visually appealing, drag-and-drop functionality, easier for sustained project tracking.

Outputs:

Literature maps with timelines, collaborative collections, alerts for new papers.

Search Input Used:

Cultural Studies, Popular Culture, Japanese Anime, Media Studies, Contemporary Japanese Studies

New/Unexpected Resources:

Yes—especially helpful when set up to track new publications around your topic.

Limitations:

Freemium model limits some features (limited to 5 results); requires more setup compared to Connected Papers.

Part 2:

Citation Landscape of “Anime fandom and the liminal spaces between fan creativity and piracy" by Denison (2011).

Backward citations: Who does this article cite?

Reference:

Sr. No.	Title	Authors	Journal	Year	Cited By	References
1	Japanese Horror Cinema	Jay McRoy	N/A	2005	33	0
2	Ringing the changes: cult distinctions and cultural differences in US fans: readings of Japanese horror cinema	M. Hills	N/A	2005	29	0
3	Splitting the Difference	Brian Knutson, G. E. Wimmer	Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences	2007	110	41
4	Pirates and Samaritans: A decade of measurements on peer production and their implications for net neutrality and copyright	Johan Pouwelse, Pawel Garbacki, Dick Epema, Henk Sips	Telecommunications Policy	2008	39	27
5	Fan Cultures	Matthew Hills	Routledge eBooks	2003	651	0
6	'Lost in Translation': Anime, Moral Rights, and Market Failure	Joshua M. Daniels	Social Science Research Network	2008	6	0
7	File sharing activities over BT Networks: pirated movies	S. Kwok	CIE	2004	14	2
8	Anime Fans, DVDs, and the Authentic Text	Laurie B. Cubbison	N/A	2006	70	6
9	Fans, bloggers, and gamers: exploring participatory culture	Henry Jenkins	Choice Reviews Online	2007	1198	0
10	Video and DVD Industries	P. Mcdonald	N/A	2008	55	0
11	The subcultures reader	K. Gelder, Sarah Thornton	N/A	1999	364	0
12	From Impressionism to anime: Japan as fantasy and fan cult in the mind of the West	Susan J. Napier	Choice Reviews Online	2008	120	0
13	The Americanization of Anime and Manga: Negotiating Popular Culture	Antonia Levi	Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks	2006	16	0
14	FANSUBBING ANIME: INSIGHTS INTO THE ‘BUTTERFLY EFFECT’ OF GLOBALISATION ON AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION	Luis Pérez González	N/A	2007	153	0
15	Progress against the law	Sean Leonard	N/A	2005	124	12
16	Splitting The Difference	Kairen Cullen	N/A	2017	24	0
17	Of Otaku and Fansubs: A Critical Look at Anime Online in Light of Current Issues in Copyright Law	J. Hatcher	N/A	2005	48	0
18	PERSPECTIVES: STUDIES IN TRANSLATOLOGY	F Farahzad	N/A	2009	30	0
19	Fandom: Identities and communities in a mediated world (second edition)	C. Sandvoss, J. Gray, C. Harrington	N/A	2007	143	0
20	The ‘Third Wave’	B. Koros	N/A	2001	633	0
21	Fansubs: Audiovisual Translation in an Amateur Environment	Jorge Díaz-Cintas, P Muñoz Sánchez	N/A	2006	255	6
22	Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home	B. Klinger	N/A	2006	155	0
23	Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community	N. Baym	N/A	1999	709	0
24	Of Otakus and Fansubs: A Critical Look at Anime Online in Light of Current Issues in Copyright Law	Jordan Hatcher	Script-ed	2005	20	0

Forward citations: Who has cited this article?

Citation:

Note: There are more than 100 articles in this table, here you will see most cited articles.

Sr. No.	Title	Authors	Journal	Year	Cited By	References
1	Abridged anime and the distance in fan-dubbing: Interpreting culture through parody and fan appropriation	Jacob Mertens	International journal of cultural studies	2023	1198	31
2	‘Is it always so fast?’	L. Zhang, Daniel Cassany	Spanish in Context	2019	709	54
3	Cult cinema in the digital age	Iain Robert Smith	Routledge eBooks	2019	651	9
4	Exploring the intersection of translation and music: an analysis of how foreign songs reach Chinese audiences	Lingli Xie	N/A	2016	633	159
5	The Translator 18(2) - Speciall Issue (Non-professionals Translating and Interpreting: Participatory and Engaged Perspectives)	Şebnem Susam‐Sarajeva, L. Pérez-González	N/A	2012	364	41
6	Creative freedom in the digital age	Violetta Budak	N/A	2016	255	68
7	Transnational Fandom: Creating Alternative Values and New Identities through Digital Labor:	Felícitas Baruch	Television & New Media	2021	155	26

Summary of Findings

While exploring Denison’s influential article “Anime fandom and the liminal spaces between fan creativity and piracy” (2011) and mapping its citation landscape through AI tools, a few patterns and academic leanings clearly emerged.

What patterns or schools of thought emerge?

There’s a clear convergence of ideas from fan studies, participatory culture, media piracy, and transnational media flows. Many of the works Denison cites, and those that cite his article in turn, engage deeply with Henry Jenkins’ theories of fandom and participatory culture. There’s also a strong influence from cultural studies, especially where fan practices intersect with global media industries and questions of authenticity, authorship, and legality.

Another noticeable pattern is the focus on fansubbing and the blurred lines between fan labor and piracy. This shows how anime fandom has been central in academic debates about digital media ethics, informal economies, and cultural translation.

Which authors or journals appear most frequently?

Henry Jenkins is by far the most frequently cited and influential voice across both backward and forward citations. His foundational work continues to shape this field.

Matthew Hills and Susan J. Napier are also recurrent, both well-known for their contributions to fan and anime studies.

On the publishing side, journals like Television & New Media, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and interdisciplinary collections from Routledge seem to be common platforms for these discussions.

Are there any surprising gaps or contradictions?

Yes—what stood out was the absence of more recent Japanese-language scholarship or works directly from scholars based in Japan. Given the subject matter (anime fandom), one might expect more engagement with local perspectives or non-Western scholarship, but the network leans heavily on Anglophone discourse.

Another gap was in AI-generated insights, none of the tools provided automated summaries or qualitative evaluations of the works, which would have been useful. Also, some tools like Citation Gecko didn’t suggest anything new for my field, which shows their limitations when dealing with niche or interdisciplinary topics like anime studies.

Part 3: Reflective Writing

Using tools like Research Rabbit, LitMaps, and Citation Gecko has changed the way I look at academic research. These tools help me go deeper into the literature by showing how papers are connected, through citations, co-authors, and themes. This makes the review process more focused and efficient.

Out of all, I would continue using Research Rabbit & Litmaps because it gives a clear visual of related papers and works well with Zotero. It also helped me find papers that other tools missed. LitMaps is also useful to track new publications over time.

These digital tools also help reduce bias. Normally, we search only what we know, but these tools suggest papers we might not think to look for. This expands the scope and brings in fresh perspectives, especially useful in interdisciplinary fields like anime and media studies.

Overall, these tools save time, improve quality, and support deeper research.