Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The formulation of fresh propositions is one of the raisons d’être of a disciplinary journal. Another, as we will argue here, is the construction, negotiation, and continual re-creation of the discipline in question. More specifically, we contend that a discipline can be conceptualized as an organization, incarnated, embodied and performed (Cooren, 2006) by a heterogeneous assembly of agents collectively engaged in an ongoing dance of agency (Pickering, 1995). Drawn from our own empirical experience, this article offers an example of some steps of this dance: We describe how fresh propositions—or in our case publishable manuscripts—get “formulated” through the review process of a particular disciplinary journal. We employ the notion of script to describe how the assembly of agents implicated in the journal adhere to the steps of the dance (or script) of what constitutes a fresh and valid proposition and, by extension, how this links to the broader “thing” known as the discipline. Specifically, we follow the stream of action of a manuscript as it travels through the review process to show the human and non-human actors who make a difference in their interactions—who dance together—along the way. In so doing, we aim to illustrate one way that the discipline is constructed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The notion of professionalism figures prominently in journalists’ own discourses about their occupation, as well as in scholarly accounts of the practice(s) of journalism. However, the journalistic use of professionalism as an element of self-understanding as well as to establish legitimacy both have the same problem: both accounts assume that professionalism is something internal to the occupational group, i.e. largely formed within and shaped by the professional collective itself. This problem with scholarship is in turn caused by the fact that even current studies of journalistic professionalism are still shaped by the state of the sociology of the occupations (the field of study on which most studies of journalistic professionalism are based) at the time when most of the canonical works were produced (i.e. the 1970s and 1980s). As I will argue in this paper, research on journalistic professionalism has largely ignored 30 years worth of occupational sociology, and thereby missed a distinction central to understanding journalism in an era of change – the distinction between two forms of professionalism, organizational professionalism and occupational professionalism. This paper presents a theoretical framework for interpreting and analyzing the practice of journalism as an ongoing negotiation between these two types of professionalism.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Through the Asian Values movement, Southeast Asian governments have succeeded in transforming academic and popular discourse, namely from one that valued investigative journalism to one that is harmonious (“Asian Value”) and that supports state/party-building. The movement succeeded because it presented itself in a way that few self-respecting intellectuals can resist – protecting indigenous cultures against imperialism. But who benefits from this culturalization and what social institutions are marginalized in the name of culture?

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Objective: To develop a comprehensive list of journals that are appropriate publication venues for SAdS scholars. Methods: An initial list of 127 journals was assembled by using previous journal-rating studies in SAdS, vitas from faculty and students at The University of Mississippi, Department of Pharmacy Administration (UM), and annual reports and publication lists on department SAdS websites where available. Current and former administrative leadership of the UM pharmacy administration department reviewed the list for comprehensiveness. A Delphi panel consisting of 15 faculty members representative of various SAdS subdisciplines was conducted online. They refined the list by assessing the appropriateness of each journal as a publication venue for SAdS scholars. Panelist demographics were collected. Results: Fourteen responding panelists agreed on the appropriateness of 13 journals. Additionally, the panel, at the close of the first contact, provided an additional 23 journal titles, which were submitted to the panel and assessed by 11 responding panelists during the second phase of the Delphi technique. The 134 journal titles which members did not reach consensus were submitted for reconsideration of journal title inclusion in a forthcoming instrument that would assess the perceived quality of SAdS journals. Seven panelists responded. Journals whereby >50% (a priori criterion) of panelists agreed that the journal should be in the subsequent phase of the study was included in the final list for a total of 113 journal titles. Implications: This list is being used in an instrument designed to measure deans’, faculty’s, and graduate students’ perceived quality of SAdS journals.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: We propose a poster presentation on our research analyzing inter-journal citation patterns among sociology journals. We have gathered data on sociology journal citation flows from the Institute of Scientific Information’s Journal Citation Reports, now available on the world wide web in connection with the annual Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Our sample of sociology journals includes over 50 journals covered by the SSCI, some of which are also included in the SSCI’s criminology, demography, and family studies categories.

Our research uses the pattern of citation flows among these journals to study two questions. First, to what extent do subgroups of these journals form clusters? We address this question by determining whether there are subgroups of the journals with high levels of intragroup citation and similar patterns of citation of other journals. Second, to what extent are the journals hierarchically organized? We address this question by examining whether pairs of journals show asymmetry in their likelihood of citing each other. Here we specify that higher ranking journals are more likely to be cited by lower ranking journals than vice versa.

To study these two questions we use recently developed techniques of log-linear analysis. Specifically, we use the RC(M) association model developed by Goodman for the analysis of cross tabulations (for a discussion of this model, see Clogg and Shidaheh (1994), pp. 80-116). This model allows us to detect clusters of journals by identifying latent dimensions that can account for the overall pattern of association within the table of citation flows. Thus, a group of journals with dense citation links show up as a dimension in this kind of model, and the number of such groups determines the number of dimensions that the RC(M) model identifies. Note that this method does not force a given number of dimensions; if all journals were to cite each other equally the RC(M) model would identify only one dimension. To determine if the journals are hierarchically ordered, we employ a strategy that stems from Duncan’s uniform association model (1979) and was used and extended by Hout (1984). The models directly incorporate measured covariates in a log-linear analysis. For our analysis we include a measure of the number of articles ever published by each journal. Including this variable allows us to standardize the citation flows among the journals in terms of the citable items that each journal possesses, and thus to gauge the extent to which the average article in journal A is cited by journal B and vice versa. Knowledge of these average citation propensities allows us to detect the asymmetric citation patterns that are a manifestation of a hierarchical ordering of journals. Once again, this approach does not force there to be a hierarchical ordering, it only facilitates the detection of any hierarchy that does exist.

Our poster will feature three main elements. First, we will show the nature of the data we are analyzing—a portion of the table of citation flows among the journals in our study. Second, we will present the basic elements of our analytic methods: the RC(M) log-linear model and it’s extension to include a measured covariate. Third, and most prominent, we will show our results. These will include any clusters of journals we detect, and any hierarchical orderings of the journals, as evidences by asymmetric citation patterns.



References

Clogg, Clifford C. and Edward S. Shihadeh. 1994. Statistical Models for Ordinal Variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Duncan, Otis Dudley. 1979. “How Destination Depends on Origin in the Occupational Mobility Table.” American Journal of Sociology 84:793-804.

Hout, Michael. 1984. “Status, Autonomy, and Training in Occupational Mobility.” American Journal of Sociology 89:1379-1409.