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Scientific communities as autopoietic systems: The reproductive function of citations

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  • Emanuela Riviera

Abstract

The increasing employment of bibliometric measures for assessing, describing, and mapping science inevitably leads to the increasing need for a citation theory constituting a theoretical frame for both citation analysis and the description of citers' behavior. In this article a theoretical model, encompassing both normative and constructivist approaches, is suggested. The conceptualization of scientific communities as autopoietic systems, the components of which are communicative events, allows us to observe the reproductive function of citations conceived as codes and media of scientific communication. Citations, thanks to their constraining and enabling properties, constitute the engine of the structuration process ensuring the reproduction of scientific communities. By referring to Giddens' structuration theory, Luhmann's theory about social systems as communicative networks, Merton's “sociology of science” and his conceptualizations about the functions of citations, as well as Small's proposal about citations as concept‐symbols, a sociologically integrated approach to scientometrics is proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Emanuela Riviera, 2013. "Scientific communities as autopoietic systems: The reproductive function of citations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(7), pages 1442-1453, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:64:y:2013:i:7:p:1442-1453
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.22826
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    Cited by:

    1. Bornmann, Lutz & Haunschild, Robin & Mutz, Rüdiger, 2020. "Should citations be field-normalized in evaluative bibliometrics? An empirical analysis based on propensity score matching," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    2. Aslıhan Sezgin & Keziban Orbay & Metin Orbay, 2022. "Educational Research Review From Diverse Perspectives: A Bibliometric Analysis of Web of Science (2011–2020)," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, December.
    3. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz, 2015. "Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(11), pages 2215-2222, November.
    4. Béatrice Milard & Yoann Pitarch, 2023. "Egocentric cocitation networks and scientific papers destinies," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 74(4), pages 415-433, April.
    5. José Luis Gallego Ortega & Antonio Rodríguez Fuentes & Antonio García Guzmán, 2021. "Application of Mathematical Methods to the Study of Special-Needs Education in Spanish Journals," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-17, March.

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