Maps on the basis of the Arts & Humanities Citation Index: The journals Leonardo and Art Journal versus "Digital Humanities" as a topic

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how journal mapping using the Arts & Humanities Citation Index can reveal citation patterns and cultural impact, comparing art journals and digital humanities as a topic.

Contribution

It constructs a quasi-JCR for A&HCI and analyzes citation networks of specific art journals and digital humanities to reveal their scholarly relationships.

Findings

Art journals cite science journals more than each other.

Art journals cite each other within their domain.

Digital humanities functions more as an intellectual organizer.

Abstract

The possibilities of using the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) for journal mapping have not been sufficiently recognized because of the absence of a Journal Citations Report (JCR) for this database. A quasi-JCR for the A&HCI (2008) was constructed from the data contained in the Web-of-Science and is used for the evaluation of two journals as examples: Leonardo and Art Journal. The maps on the basis of the aggregated journal-journal citations within this domain can be compared with maps including references to journals in the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index. Art journals are cited by (social) science journals more than by other art journals, but these journals draw upon one another in terms of their own references. This cultural impact in terms of being cited is not found when documents with a topic such as "digital humanities" are analyzed. This community of practice functions more as an intellectual organizer than a journal.