Global Digital Culture Research: Framework, Progress and Prospects

Since 2012, the core themes of global digital cultural studies have undergone three phases of evolution: initially focusing on the socio-cultural impacts of digital technology, then shifting to cultural practices and innovations in virtual spaces and immersive technologies, and in recent years, focusing on artificial intelligence, particularly the transformative effects of generative AI on cultural production paradigms. This evolution deeply reflects the development and application of digital technology. Existing reviews have primarily concentrated on the digitization of cultural heritage, the digitization of the cultural industry, and public digital cultural services, with insufficient systematic analysis and foresight regarding cutting-edge issues such as generative AI. Therefore, this study employs bibliometric and thematic review methods, using 1,572 English-language articles from the Web of Science Core Collection between 2012 and 2025 as data. Cite Space software is utilized to analyse annual publication volumes, national/regional and institutional distributions, keyword co-occurrence and clustering, hot topics, and future research directions, thereby mapping the research trajectory and progress. The research questions include: (1) How have core themes evolved from 2012 to 2025? How do they reflect the development and application of digital technology? What are the characteristics of the current academic landscape? How do national/regional contributions, core institutional distributions, and collaborative networks influence knowledge production and dissemination? (2) What are the core focus areas of recent research? (3) In the face of the impact of generative AI and the metaverse, what are the core frontier issues and key ethical challenges that require urgent attention in the future? Finally, the study summarizes the application scenarios and trends of digital technology in cultural digitization. It prospectively explores. Cultural innovation practices driven by emerging technologies, ethical challenges posed by generative AI, digital narrative and global cultural communication innovation, and global cooperation and interdisciplinary pathways in digital humanities.