The social construction of knowledge through scientific communication: operationalizing the knowledge base
I study scientific texts to analyze the emergence of new concepts, and their effects on the structure of scientific communication. My main concern is with the different ways that new information, derived in this case from scientific discoveries, upsets the structure of scientific communication The empirical focus will be on the discovery of fullerenes (1985) and the fullerene-like structures nanotubes (1991) in the field of nanoscience and on the emergence of the concepts of “lock-in” (1988) and “small worlds” (1990) in network analysis and evolutionary economics. One can expect that confusion, e.g., in a crisis, leads to increasing uncertainty in the repertoire, while the codification of new concepts organizes the repertoire. A first paper entitled “Knowledge Emergence in Scientific Communication: From “Fullerenes” to “Nanotubes” is available at http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/d.p.lucioarias/. During my presentation, I intend to give an overview of the results and conclusions achieved in this first paper emphasizing different changes that could be perceived in the structure of scientific communications due to the introduction of the concepts under study.
Diana Lucio-Arias,
ASCoR, November 2006