IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v129y2024i10d10.1007_s11192-024-05047-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visualizing hidden communities of interest: A case-study analysis of topic-based social networks in astrobiology

Author

Listed:
  • Christophe Malaterre

    (Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
    Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM))

  • Francis Lareau

    (Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM))

Abstract

Author networks in science often rely on citation analyses. In such cases, as in others, network interpretation usually depends on supplementary data, notably about authors’ research domains when disciplinary interpretations are sought. More general social networks also face similar interpretation challenges as to the semantic content specificities of their members. In this research-in-progress, we propose to infer author networks not from citation analyses but from topic similarity analyses based on a topic-model of published documents. Such author networks reveal, as we call them, “hidden communities of interest” (HCoIs) whose semantic content can easily be interpreted by means of their associated topics in the model. We use an astrobiology corpus of full-text articles (N = 3,698) to illustrate the approach. Having conducted an LDA topic-model on all publications, we identify the underlying communities of authors by measuring author correlations in terms of topic distributions. Adding publication dates makes it possible to examine HCoI evolution over time. This approach to social networks supplements traditional methods in contexts where textual data are available.

Suggested Citation

  • Christophe Malaterre & Francis Lareau, 2024. "Visualizing hidden communities of interest: A case-study analysis of topic-based social networks in astrobiology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(10), pages 6167-6181, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:10:d:10.1007_s11192-024-05047-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-024-05047-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-024-05047-7
    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/s11192-024-05047-7?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. de Vries, Erik & Schoonvelde, Martijn & Schumacher, Gijs, 2018. "No Longer Lost in Translation: Evidence that Google Translate Works for Comparative Bag-of-Words Text Applications," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 417-430, October.
    2. Kevin W. Boyack & Richard Klavans & Katy Börner, 2005. "Mapping the backbone of science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 64(3), pages 351-374, August.
    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. Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Giovannini, Alessandro & Jamet, Jean-François & Persson, Eric, 2022. "Ideology and monetary policy. The role of political parties’ stances in the European Central Bank’s parliamentary hearings," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Andreas Bjurström & Merritt Polk, 2011. "Climate change and interdisciplinarity: a co-citation analysis of IPCC Third Assessment Report," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 525-550, June.
    3. Citron, Daniel T. & Way, Samuel F., 2018. "Network assembly of scientific communities of varying size and specificity," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 181-190.
    4. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D'Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2012. "Identifying interdisciplinarity through the disciplinary classification of coauthors of scientific publications," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(11), pages 2206-2222, November.
    5. Jianhua Hou, 2017. "Exploration into the evolution and historical roots of citation analysis by referenced publication year spectroscopy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(3), pages 1437-1452, March.
    6. Konstantinos G. Papaspyropoulos & Harikleia Liakou & Panayotis Dimopoulos, 2023. "Climate Change in the Biodiversity and Forest Strategies in Greece Using Discourse Analysis and Text Mining: Is an Integration into a Cost-Efficient Natural Resources Policy Feasible?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-12, April.
    7. van Eck, N.J.P. & Waltman, L., 2009. "How to Normalize Co-Occurrence Data? An Analysis of Some Well-Known Similarity Measures," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2009-001-LIS, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    8. Ying Huang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Lin Zhang, 2021. "Tracing the development of mapping knowledge domains," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 6201-6224, July.
    9. Perianes-Rodriguez, Antonio & Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 2017. "A comparison of the Web of Science and publication-level classification systems of science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 32-45.
    10. Jimi Adams & Ryan Light, 2014. "Mapping Interdisciplinary Fields: Efficiencies, Gaps and Redundancies in HIV/AIDS Research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-13, December.
    11. Rosa Rodriguez-Sánchez & J. A. García & J. Fdez-Valdivia, 2014. "Evolutionary games between subject categories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 869-888, October.
    12. Amin Mazloumian, 2012. "Predicting Scholars' Scientific Impact," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-5, November.
    13. Chen, Xiaoyan & Liu, Yisheng, 2020. "Visualization analysis of high-speed railway research based on CiteSpace," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-17.
    14. Ferrara, Federico M. & Masciandaro, Donato & Moschella, Manuela & Romelli, Davide, 2022. "Political voice on monetary policy: Evidence from the parliamentary hearings of the European Central Bank," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Dyhdalewicz Anna & Grześ-Bukłaho Justyna, 2021. "Competences of innovation brokers - experiences of the GoSmart BSR project," Engineering Management in Production and Services, Sciendo, vol. 13(4), pages 95-114, December.
    16. Cristiano Varin & Manuela Cattelan & David Firth, 2016. "Statistical modelling of citation exchange between statistics journals," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(1), pages 1-63, January.
    17. Wilfred Dolfsma & Loet Leydesdorff, 2010. "The citation field of evolutionary economics," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(5), pages 645-664, October.
    18. Lambiotte, R. & Panzarasa, P., 2009. "Communities, knowledge creation, and information diffusion," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 180-190.
    19. Hauke Licht & Ronja Sczepanski & Moritz Laurer & Ayjeren Bekmuratovna, 2024. "No More Cost in Translation: Validating Open-Source Machine Translation for Quantitative Text Analysis," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 276, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    20. Damien Pennetreau & Thomas Laloux, 2021. "Talkin’ ‘bout a Negotiation: (Un)Transparent Rapporteurs’ Speeches in the European Parliament," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 248-260.

    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:129:y:2024:i:10:d:10.1007_s11192-024-05047-7. 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.