A comparative study on communication structures of Chinese journals in the social sciences

[Loet Leydesdorff]

Dear Tom, 
 
I am not so sure that China now is directly comparable with the Soviet
Union. Library and information science, for example, are well developed. 
 
With best wishes, 
 
 
Loet
 
  _____  

Loet Leydesdorff 
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), 
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. 
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681 
 <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> loet at leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/ 

 


  _____  

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Tom Wilson
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 3:48 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] A comparative study on communication structures of
Chinese journals in the social sciences


in the communist ideology - it was the same in the days of the Soviet Union
- Marxist/Leninism is presumed to be the only philosophy/methodology needed
to explain social life and for a social scientist to explore different
avenues was positively dangerous. With the collapse of communism in Russia,
social scientists there and in the former dependencies are now exploring
Western social philosophy and, to a certain extent, anything Marxist is
considered suspect - a complete reversal of the previous situation. 


Given the tight control of society in China, I imagine that looking beyond
Marxism for social explanation would also be considered suspect.


Tom Wilson



On 22 February 2010 14:33, Zhou, Ping <Ping.Zhou at econ.kuleuven.be> wrote:


Dear David, 

 

The "stagnation" is concluded based on two types of comparison: comparison
with natural and life sciences domestically and the specialization
comparison between Chinese and international communities. 

 

Domestic comparison shows that China's world share of publications in the
social sciences lags dramatically behind that in the natural and life
sciences (see Figure 1 of the paper). 

 

International comparison shows that China is less specialized than its
international counterparts. We argue that specialization links to maturity
of a discipline; less specialization may lead to slower progress. 

 

The full text of the paper can be retrieved at:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.3590

 

With kind regards, 

 

Ping Zhou 

 

 

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 12:57 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] A comparative study on communication structures of
Chinese journals in the social sciences

 


 

What do you mean by "stagnation" and how are you measuring it? This seems
like an odd conclusion to draw from a citation analysis.


David 

On Feb 22, 2010, Zhou, Ping <Ping.Zhou at ECON.KULEUVEN.BE> wrote:


Title: A comparative study on communication structures of Chinese journals
in the social sciences

Source: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, forthcoming

Authors: Ping Zhou, Xinning Su, Loet Leydesdorff

Abstract: We argue that the communication structures in the Chinese social
sciences have not yet been sufficiently reformed. Citation patterns among
Chinese domestic journals in three subject areas-political science and
marxism, library and information science, and economics-are compared with
their counterparts internationally. Like their colleagues in the natural and
life sciences, Chinese scholars in the social sciences provide fewer
references to journal publications than their international counterparts;
like their international colleagues, social scientists provide fewer
references than natural sciences. The resulting citation networks,
therefore, are sparse. Nevertheless, the citation structures clearly suggest
that the Chinese social sciences are far less specialized in terms of
disciplinary delineations than their international counterparts. Marxism
studies are more established than political science in China. In terms of
the impact of the Chinese political system o!
n academic fields, disciplines closely related to the political system are
less specialized than those weakly related. In the discussion section, we
explore reasons that may cause the current stagnation and provide policy
recommendations.




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