Journal of Information Science
Content
Journal of Information Science
When statistics and data are taken, the science of the statistics is called
demography. However demography is also referred to in a broader sense
encompassing a few other closely related datas taken connected by a few subjects
such as sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, planning and development,
biology, and medicine and public health. The connection is called interdisciplinary
demography. This intellectual demographic structure is analyzed based on 65 journals.
The authors have come up with 12 clusters of subject specialties. As a
discipline, demography merges with other fields, with uncertainty in its boundaries. The
understanding of the boundaries require an understanding of the detailed structural
information in its large context, therefore one needs to explore the intellectual structure
of demography by revealing connections with its subject specialties and outside them.
Citation analysis is commonly used to explore the intellectual structure of a given
discipline. The internal and external scholarly communication of a discipline can be
understood by mapping its published literature. The principal methods to map the
structure of a discipline are co-word analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-citation
analysis, and intercitation analysis. this paper aims to map the structure of demographyrelated journals using intercitation data in a valued directed network.
Mapping such an intellectual structure is particularly valuable in terms of
delimiting the boundaries of the discipline in its large context and presenting the visual
and quantitative understanding of the interactions between representative demographyrelated journals.
The authors addressed the following three questions when collecting the
intercitation data from 65 demography-related report JCR (Journal Citation Report):
1. What is the overall intellectual structure of demography-related journals in its
large context?
2. To what extent are all selected journals related to the demography journals in
terms of citation percentages?
3. Have the demographic citation patterns changed over time?
Statistical procedures:
To determine the subject specialties of the 65 demography-related journals, the
authors performed a cluster analysis on the standardized matrix of both rows and
columns. The standardized matrix was subjected to complete linkage hierarchical
clustering. Complete linkage clustering requires that ‘any candidate for inclusion into an
existing cluster must have certain level of similarity to all members of that cluster.’
Therefore, it tends to produce compact and distinct clusters of highly similar cases. To
visualize the network connections, they created a network diagram using the same
standardized matrix. The threshold of the journal citations was set to optimize the
subject relatedness of these journals. They further demonstrated how demographic
information travels within and across its boundaries by calculating the citation
percentages of all the selected journals in relation to the demography ones. Finally, the
authors tested whether there was any significant change in citation patterns among the
selected journals over time. For that purpose, the raw data of the yearly matrices were
correlated with those of the aggregated matrix using Quadratic Assignment Procedure
(QAP). A similar procedure was applied to the data among the yearly matrices. The
program Ucinet 6 for Windows was used for the cluster analysis and network diagram in
this study.
Overall intellectual structure of the 65
Demography-related journals
Figure 1 presents the result of the hierarchical clustering of the 65 demography-related
journals for their subject relatedness. The selected journal titles and their abbreviations
are listed in the notes to the diagram. A 12-cluster solution is chosen identifying 12
groups of journals. Cluster 1 is composed of sexual health journals and an adolescent
health journal (A, AC, JAH,PSRH, STD). Anthropology journals and human biology
journals are grouped to form cluster 2 (AA, AJPA, ARA, AHB, AJHB, CA, HB). Cluster 3
comprises economics journals and a human resources journal (AER, JEL, JHR, JLE,
JPE, JPEc, JPuE). Cluster 4 consists of public health journals, including those on
epidemiology, social sciences and health, and health policy (AJE, AJPH, BWHO, HPP,
IJE, JECH, JHSB, MQ, SSM). Contraception and human reproduction journals
joingynecology and obstetrics journals in cluster 5 (AJOG, C, HR, IJGO, OG). Cluster 6
embraces sociology and social science journals (AJS, ARS, ASR, ESR, SF, SSR).
General and comprehensive demography journals are grouped in cluster 7 (D, PB,
PDR, PRPR, PS). Cluster 8 includes development journals plus a human geography
journal (DC, EDCC, JDS, PHG, WD). The two human migration journals are clustered
with a race and ethnicity journal in cluster 9 (ERS, IM, IMR). The European-based
demography journals are joined in cluster 10 by family history and population
environment journals (EJP, JFH, P, PE). Journals of family studies and aging are
grouped in cluster 11 (G, JCFS, JFI, JMF, RA). Finally, four family planning and social
biology journals are included in cluster 12 (IFPP, JBS,
SB, SFP). It is of interest to note that the 16 demography journals are split into different
subject specialties:
– general and comprehensive, European-based general and comprehensive, family
planning and social biology, and human migration, with PSRH joining the sexual health
cluster and JPE the economics cluster. It is also important to see the subject
relatedness in the combinations of journals in these clusters, such as the anthropology
and human biology journals, the aging and family studies journals, and the family
planning and social biology journals.
When statistics and data are taken, the science of the statistics is called
demography. However demography is also referred to in a broader sense
encompassing a few other closely related datas taken connected by a few subjects
such as sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, planning and development,
biology, and medicine and public health. The connection is called interdisciplinary
demography. This intellectual demographic structure is analyzed based on 65 journals.
The authors have come up with 12 clusters of subject specialties. As a
discipline, demography merges with other fields, with uncertainty in its boundaries. The
understanding of the boundaries require an understanding of the detailed structural
information in its large context, therefore one needs to explore the intellectual structure
of demography by revealing connections with its subject specialties and outside them.
Citation analysis is commonly used to explore the intellectual structure of a given
discipline. The internal and external scholarly communication of a discipline can be
understood by mapping its published literature. The principal methods to map the
structure of a discipline are co-word analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-citation
analysis, and intercitation analysis. this paper aims to map the structure of demographyrelated journals using intercitation data in a valued directed network.
Mapping such an intellectual structure is particularly valuable in terms of
delimiting the boundaries of the discipline in its large context and presenting the visual
and quantitative understanding of the interactions between representative demographyrelated journals.
The authors addressed the following three questions when collecting the
intercitation data from 65 demography-related report JCR (Journal Citation Report):
1. What is the overall intellectual structure of demography-related journals in its
large context?
2. To what extent are all selected journals related to the demography journals in
terms of citation percentages?
3. Have the demographic citation patterns changed over time?
Statistical procedures:
To determine the subject specialties of the 65 demography-related journals, the
authors performed a cluster analysis on the standardized matrix of both rows and
columns. The standardized matrix was subjected to complete linkage hierarchical
clustering. Complete linkage clustering requires that ‘any candidate for inclusion into an
existing cluster must have certain level of similarity to all members of that cluster.’
Therefore, it tends to produce compact and distinct clusters of highly similar cases. To
visualize the network connections, they created a network diagram using the same
standardized matrix. The threshold of the journal citations was set to optimize the
subject relatedness of these journals. They further demonstrated how demographic
information travels within and across its boundaries by calculating the citation
percentages of all the selected journals in relation to the demography ones. Finally, the
authors tested whether there was any significant change in citation patterns among the
selected journals over time. For that purpose, the raw data of the yearly matrices were
correlated with those of the aggregated matrix using Quadratic Assignment Procedure
(QAP). A similar procedure was applied to the data among the yearly matrices. The
program Ucinet 6 for Windows was used for the cluster analysis and network diagram in
this study.
Overall intellectual structure of the 65
Demography-related journals
Figure 1 presents the result of the hierarchical clustering of the 65 demography-related
journals for their subject relatedness. The selected journal titles and their abbreviations
are listed in the notes to the diagram. A 12-cluster solution is chosen identifying 12
groups of journals. Cluster 1 is composed of sexual health journals and an adolescent
health journal (A, AC, JAH,PSRH, STD). Anthropology journals and human biology
journals are grouped to form cluster 2 (AA, AJPA, ARA, AHB, AJHB, CA, HB). Cluster 3
comprises economics journals and a human resources journal (AER, JEL, JHR, JLE,
JPE, JPEc, JPuE). Cluster 4 consists of public health journals, including those on
epidemiology, social sciences and health, and health policy (AJE, AJPH, BWHO, HPP,
IJE, JECH, JHSB, MQ, SSM). Contraception and human reproduction journals
joingynecology and obstetrics journals in cluster 5 (AJOG, C, HR, IJGO, OG). Cluster 6
embraces sociology and social science journals (AJS, ARS, ASR, ESR, SF, SSR).
General and comprehensive demography journals are grouped in cluster 7 (D, PB,
PDR, PRPR, PS). Cluster 8 includes development journals plus a human geography
journal (DC, EDCC, JDS, PHG, WD). The two human migration journals are clustered
with a race and ethnicity journal in cluster 9 (ERS, IM, IMR). The European-based
demography journals are joined in cluster 10 by family history and population
environment journals (EJP, JFH, P, PE). Journals of family studies and aging are
grouped in cluster 11 (G, JCFS, JFI, JMF, RA). Finally, four family planning and social
biology journals are included in cluster 12 (IFPP, JBS,
SB, SFP). It is of interest to note that the 16 demography journals are split into different
subject specialties:
– general and comprehensive, European-based general and comprehensive, family
planning and social biology, and human migration, with PSRH joining the sexual health
cluster and JPE the economics cluster. It is also important to see the subject
relatedness in the combinations of journals in these clusters, such as the anthropology
and human biology journals, the aging and family studies journals, and the family
planning and social biology journals.
