The engineering of consent: A state-of-the-art review

This study systematically analyzes Engineering of Consent (EOC)-focused scholarly papers pub-lished between 1947 and 2018 using content analysis and text mining. It aims to shed light on theprogress of EOC research and related disciplines as well as the methodologies, data collectionmethods, major perspectives, and most frequent words used within these writings. Additionally,this study considers publications by region and the affiliations offirst authors. The results showthat only a small number of EOC-focused papers have been published since 1947; this area ofpublic relations research has suffered from a lack of scholarly attention despite its relevance tovarious disciplines, and this is a situation that we hope improves. Recent trends have shown somereasons for optimism. We found that at least one EOC-focused paper has been published annuallyin most years since 2000 (the exceptions are 2001, 2006, 2010, 2011, and 2015). Our researchshows that scholars in thefields of public relations, media studies, and political science publishedmore papers on EOC than scholars in otherfields. Research articles usually utilize qualitativeresearch methodologies. Interviews stand out as the most widely used data collection method.Our analysis of publications by region andfirst-author affiliation shows that the majority of EOCpapers were written by faculty and students working or studying in the United States. Sevenperspectives frequently discussed by scholars and the most frequently used words within EOCpapers are highlighted in a follow-up qualitative review