Knowledge Emergence in Scientific Communication: From "Fullerenes" to "Nanotubes"

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how scientific discoveries like fullerenes lead to new knowledge and influence communication structures, using network analysis to study institutional, semantic, and cognitive changes in scientific literature.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-dimensional network analysis approach to trace knowledge emergence from discovery to subsequent research developments.

Findings

Fullerenes discovery triggered nanotube research

Knowledge emergence influences journal structures and semantic coding

Cognitive foundations evolve with scientific discoveries

Abstract

This article explores the emergence of knowledge from scientific discoveries and their effects on the structure of scientific communication. Network analysis is applied to understand this emergence institutionally as changes in the journals; semantically, as changes in the codification of meaning in terms of words; and cognitively as the new knowledge becomes the emergent foundation of further developments. The discovery of fullerenes in 1985 is analyzed as the scientific discovery that triggered a process which led to research in nanotubes.