Science communication studies: The case of scientific periodicals

Tatiana D. Sokolo­va
Insti­tute of Phi­los­o­phy, Russ­ian Acad­e­my of Sci­ences

Sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies: The case of sci­en­tif­ic peri­od­i­cals

Abstract. Sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies is a sub­ject of research for a whole range of sci­en­tif­ic dis­ci­plines: epis­te­mol­o­gy, phi­los­o­phy and his­to­ry of sci­ence, STS, lin­guis­tics, media stud­ies and many oth­ers, that is, they are a com­plex inter­dis­ci­pli­nary sys­tem of var­i­ous approach­es and the­o­ries that can both com­ple­ment and con­tra­dict each oth­er. In this arti­cle I will try to high­light sev­er­al pos­si­ble the­o­ret­i­cal direc­tions for the study of sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­cern­ing one of its spe­cif­ic aspects – sci­en­tif­ic peri­od­i­cals in their his­tor­i­cal for­ma­tion. The main dis­tin­guish­ing cri­te­ri­on of sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles, unlike oth­er types of sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, is a set of rel­a­tive­ly rigid for­mal require­ments for struc­tur­ing the infor­ma­tion that the authors are try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate to their col­leagues. Through the his­to­ry of sci­en­tif­ic peri­od­i­cals, it is pos­si­ble to deter­mine how these require­ments have been formed and shaped epis­tem­i­cal­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly; how exact­ly a sci­en­tif­ic arti­cle acquires the sta­tus of the main unit of sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Here I would like to out­line sev­er­al the­o­ret­i­cal and method­olog­i­cal options that can be lat­er applied to the analy­sis of empir­i­cal mate­r­i­al (series 1–4 of the jour­nal Com­men­tarii Acad­e­mi­ae sci­en­tiarum impe­ri­alis Pet­ro­pol­i­tanae).

Key­words: sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, sci­en­tif­ic peri­od­i­cals, method­ol­o­gy of sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies, his­to­ry of sci­ence, jour­nal arti­cle

DOI: 10.5840/dspl20192458

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