IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v124y2020i2d10.1007_s11192-020-03444-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Informetrics and the study of science–society communications: a bibliometric scoping review

Author

Listed:
  • Sándor Soós

    (Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA)
    Eötvös Loránd University)

  • Anna Kiss

    (Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA)
    Eötvös Loránd University)

Abstract

Informetrics with its frameworks and methods has long been playing a prominent role in the study of science–society communications. The aim of the present work is an exploratory study of this domain of research, via a scoping review based on enhanced bibliometric methods. The leading research questions concern the cognitive structure of the subject, its position in the broader context of science communication studies and social studies of science, and the role and contributions of informetrics in advancing the field. To overcome the difficulties stemming from the complex definition of the subject, we use an indirect, link-based search strategy for database construction. Our methodological framework consists of a combination of bibliographic coupling (identifying main research streams), various representations of semantic networks (analyzing the cognitive organization of individual research streams), and the systematic synthesis of the results we call quasi content analysis. Beyond uncovering the role and context of informetrics in the study of science–society communications, our results contribute to the conceptual clarifications on such timely issues as the meaning of altmetrics or the notion of social impact in recent informetrics paradigms.

Suggested Citation

  • Sándor Soós & Anna Kiss, 2020. "Informetrics and the study of science–society communications: a bibliometric scoping review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 825-842, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:124:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03444-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03444-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03444-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-020-03444-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    2. Hadas Shema & Judit Bar-Ilan & Mike Thelwall, 2015. "How is research blogged? A content analysis approach," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(6), pages 1136-1149, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mike Thelwall, 2017. "Judit Bar-Ilan: information scientist, computer scientist, scientometrician," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1235-1244, December.
    2. Deming Lin & Tianhui Gong & Wenbin Liu & Martin Meyer, 2020. "An entropy-based measure for the evolution of h index research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2283-2298, December.
    3. Daniel Torres-Salinas & Nicolás Robinson-García & Álvaro Cabezas-Clavijo & Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras, 2014. "Analyzing the citation characteristics of books: edited books, book series and publisher types in the book citation index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2113-2127, March.
    4. Ying Guo & Xiantao Xiao, 2022. "Author-level altmetrics for the evaluation of Chinese scholars," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(2), pages 973-990, February.
    5. Yves Gingras & Mahdi Khelfaoui, 2018. "Assessing the effect of the United States’ “citation advantage” on other countries’ scientific impact as measured in the Web of Science (WoS) database," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 517-532, February.
    6. Juan Miguel Campanario, 2018. "Are leaders really leading? Journals that are first in Web of Science subject categories in the context of their groups," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 111-130, April.
    7. Perc, Matjaž, 2010. "Zipf’s law and log-normal distributions in measures of scientific output across fields and institutions: 40 years of Slovenia’s research as an example," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 358-364.
    8. Yunwei Chen & Katy Börner & Shu Fang, 2013. "Evolving collaboration networks in Scientometrics in 1978–2010: a micro–macro analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(3), pages 1051-1070, June.
    9. Yaxue Ma & Zhichao Ba & Yuxiang Zhao & Jin Mao & Gang Li, 2021. "Understanding and predicting the dissemination of scientific papers on social media: a two-step simultaneous equation modeling–artificial neural network approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(8), pages 7051-7085, August.
    10. Hürlimann, Werner, 2015. "On the uniform random upper bound family of first significant digit distributions," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 349-358.
    11. Gali Halevi, 2020. "The scientific legacy of Judit Bar-Ilan," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(3), pages 1201-1209, June.
    12. Chun-Ting Zhang, 2009. "The e-Index, Complementing the h-Index for Excess Citations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-4, May.
    13. Ángel Acevedo-Duque & Gonzalo R. Llanos-Herrera & Elizabeth Emperatriz García-Salirrosas & Selene Simón-Isidoro & Agustín Pablo Álvarez-Herranz & Rina Álvarez-Becerra & Lisette C. Sánchez Díaz, 2022. "Scientometric Analysis of Hiking Tourism and Its Relevance for Wellbeing and Knowledge Management," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-21, July.
    14. Luis Miguel Pérez & Raul Oltra-Badenes & Juan Vicente Oltra Gutiérrez & Hermenegildo Gil-Gómez, 2020. "A Bibliometric Diagnosis and Analysis about Smart Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-43, August.
    15. Yurij L. Katchanov & Yulia V. Markova, 2017. "The “space of physics journals”: topological structure and the Journal Impact Factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 313-333, October.
    16. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan, 2008. "Some comments on the journal weighted impact factor proposed by Habibzadeh and Yadollahie," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 369-372.
    17. Guillaume Cabanac, 2012. "Shaping the landscape of research in information systems from the perspective of editorial boards: A scientometric study of 77 leading journals," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(5), pages 977-996, May.
    18. Liang, Liming & Zhong, Zhen & Rousseau, Ronald, 2015. "Uncited papers, uncited authors and uncited topics: A case study in library and information science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 50-58.
    19. Guillaume Cabanac, 2012. "Shaping the landscape of research in information systems from the perspective of editorial boards: A scientometric study of 77 leading journals," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(5), pages 977-996, May.
    20. Mike Thelwall, 2021. "Measuring Societal Impacts Of Research With Altmetrics? Common Problems And Mistakes," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1302-1314, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:124:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03444-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.