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Disciplinary Networks and Bounding: Scientific Communication Between Science and Technology Studies and the History of Science

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Abstract

This article examines the communication networks within and between science and technology studies (STS) and the history of science. In particular, journal relatedness data are used to analyze some of the structural features of their disciplinary identities and relationships. The results first show that, although the history of science is more than half a century older than STS, the size of the STS network is more than twice that of the history of science network. Further, while a majority of the journals in the STS network are connected by weak ties, about half of the history of science network consists of strong ties. The history of science network is thus more cohesive than the STS network. The relatively strong cohesion within the history of science network is associated with comparatively high degrees of intra-disciplinary communication, but comparatively weak ties to only a few related disciplines. The analysis also shows that very few members of the history of science cliques are situated on the shortest path between both specialties. Moreover, given the relatively impermeable nature of the history of science network, the latter partially depends on STS to reach some of the neighboring disciplines.

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Notes

  1. The first issue of Minerva also appeared in 1962. As specified in its first editorial, Minerva chose to focus upon the ‘new situation’ of science and scholarship, especially in the context of the university.

  2. All in all, these results strongly support our selection of the relevant entrance journals.

  3. Isis was originally a multilingual journal. Sarton’s programmatic statement was written in French. We quote here from a slightly revised English translation, which was first published in 1916 and reprinted in Sarton’s The life of science (1948).

  4. For some misunderstood misunderstandings between historians of science and sociologists of scientific knowledge, see Shapin (1982, 1992). For a related case-study of the disciplinary history of sociology and American studies and their mutual closure, see Dubrow (2011)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Antwerp, OASeS, Sint-Jacobstraat 2, 2000, Antwerpen, Belgium

    Frédéric Vandermoere

  2. Department of Sociology, Center for Social Theory, Ghent University, Korte Meer 5, 9000, Gent, Belgium

    Raf Vanderstraeten

Authors
  1. Frédéric Vandermoere
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  2. Raf Vanderstraeten
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Correspondence to Frédéric Vandermoere.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Out-Degrees and In-Degrees of the Entrance Journals (Strong to Moderate Ties Only)

See Tables 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Table 3 Social Studies of Science (SOC STUD SCI)
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Table 4 Science, Technology & Human Values (ST&HV)
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Table 5 Isis
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Table 6 History of Science (HIST SCI)
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Appendix 2: Clique Analysis (Minimum Set Size = 5)

See Tables 7 and 8.

Table 7 Sub-group identification
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Table 8 Clique participation scores (Prop. of clique members that SOC STUD SCI and ST&HV are adjacent to)
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Vandermoere, F., Vanderstraeten, R. Disciplinary Networks and Bounding: Scientific Communication Between Science and Technology Studies and the History of Science. Minerva 50, 451–470 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-012-9210-x

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