scholarly journals Investigating journal peer review as scientific object of study: unabridged version – Part II

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Gaudet
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Structural Properties ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Legal Obligation ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Scientific Object ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study

The main goal of this paper is to construct journal peer review as a scientific object of study based on historical research into the shaping of its structural properties. This paper is a second in a two-part series. Journal peer review performed in the natural sciences has been an object of study since at least 1830. Researchers mostly implicitly frame it as a rational system with expectations of rational decision-making. This in spite of research debunking rationality where journal peer review can yield low inter-rater reliability, be purportedly biased and conservative, and cannot readily detect fraud or misconduct. Furthermore, journal peer review is consistently presented as a process started in 1665 at the first journals and as holding a gatekeeper function for quality science. In contrast, socio-historical research portrays journal peer review as emulating previous social processes regulating what is to be considered as scientific knowledge (or not) (cf., inquisition, censorship) and early learned societies as engaged in peer review with a legal obligation under censorship. However, to date few researchers have sought to investigate journal peer review beyond a pre-constructed process or self-evident object of study. I construct journal peer review as a scientific object of study with key analytical dimensions: structural properties. I use the concept of social form to capture how individuals relate around a particular content. For the social form of ‘boundary judgement’, content refers to decisions from the judgement of scientific written texts held to account to an overarching knowledge system. Given its roots in censorship with its function of bounding science, I frame journal peer review as following precursor forms of inquisition and censorship. The main implication from insights in the paper is that structural properties in boundary judgement social forms are understood as dynamic when looked at through a historical lens.

scholarly journals Investigating journal peer review as scientific object of study: unabridged version – Part I

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Gaudet
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Legal Obligation ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Scientific Object ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study

The main goal of this paper is to construct journal peer review as a scientific object of study based on historical research into its shaping. This paper is a first in a two-part series. Journal peer review performed in the natural sciences has been an object of study since at least 1830. Researchers mostly implicitly frame it as a rational system with expectations of rational decision-making. This in spite of research debunking rationality where journal peer review can yield low inter-rater reliability, be purportedly biased and conservative, and cannot readily detect fraud or misconduct. Furthermore, journal peer review is consistently presented as a process started in 1665 at the first journals and as holding a gatekeeper function for quality science. In contrast, socio-historical research portrays journal peer review as emulating previous social processes regulating what is to be considered as scientific knowledge (or not) (cf., inquisition, censorship) and early learned societies as engaged in peer review with a legal obligation under censorship. However, to date few researchers have sought to investigate journal peer review beyond a pre-constructed process or self-evident object of study based on common experience. Here I construct journal peer review as a scientific object of study with key analytical dimensions based on its structural properties. I use the theoretical concept of social form to capture how individuals relate around a particular content. For the social form of ‘boundary judgement’ (i.e., journal peer review), content refers to decisions from the judgement of scientific written texts held to account to an overarching knowledge system. Given its roots in censorship with its function of bounding science, I frame journal peer review as following precursor boundary judgement forms of inquisition and censorship. Constructing journal peer review as a scientific object of study contributes to improving it based on scientific understanding.

scholarly journals How pre-publication journal peer review (re)produces ignorance at scientific and medical journals: a case study

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Gaudet
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Structural Properties ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Medical Journals ◽  
Social Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Exchange ◽  
Scientific Ideas

The main goal of this paper is to explore how journal peer review produces and reproduces ignorance at scientific and medical journals. I focus on the case of pre- publication journal peer review (traditional peer review). Scientific ignorance is non- pejorative as the limits and borders of knowledge where new scientific ideas can contain new ignorance that pushes the boundaries of knowledge. Traditional peer review is an example of a ‘boundary judgement’ social form where content refers to decisions from the judgement of scientific written texts held to account to an overarching knowledge system – creating boundaries between what is and what is not considered science. Moreover, boundary judgement forms interact with the social form of scientific exchange where scientists communicate knowledge and ignorance. I investigate traditional peer review’s structural properties – elements that contribute to shaping relations in a form – to understand ignorance (re)production. Analysis of twenty-five cases with empirical and self- and third party accounts data, and data from eleven semi-structured interviews helps construct theoretical insights into how traditional peer review mostly contributes to ignorance reproduction. Reproduction owes to four structural properties: (1) contingency traditional peer review places on scientific exchange; (2) secrecy for original manuscripts and editorial judgements and decisions; (3) a relation of accountability to empiricism for editorial readers that helps construct a boundary for manuscripts, deemed as scientific or not; and (4) a relation of accountability to readers enhanced by a criterion of originality that appears to construct another boundary for manuscripts, deemed as newsworthy or not. I conclude with implications from this work set against Kuhn’s theory of paradigms. I also look to implications for authors, policymakers, editors, and journal publishers.

scholarly journals All that glitters is not gold: The shaping of contemporary journal peer review at scientific and medical journals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Gaudet
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Medical Journals ◽  
Social Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Rational Process ◽  
Do So

The main goal for this paper is to propose an analysis of the shaping of contemporary journal peer review at natural science and medical journals. I investigate journal peer review beyond a pre-constructed process or self-evident object of study based on common experience. To do so, I use the theoretical concept of social form to capture how individuals relate around a particular content. For the social form of ‘boundary judgement’ (i.e., journal peer review), content refers to decisions from the judgement of scientific written texts held to account to an overarching knowledge system. I shun journal peer review as a supposedly purely rational process borne of a need for rationality – instead, I explore the social conditions, dynamics, processes, and contexts that contributed to its contemporary shaping. Analysis highlights how economic dynamics play a critical role in shaping pre-publication journal peer review (traditional peer review) as a paradigmatic form of peer review to the detriment of more open journal peer review forms and of journal business models that stray from the traditional reader-pay model. I conclude that all that glitters is not gold with traditional peer review.

Kinetic Communism

2020 ◽  
pp. 198-214
Author(s):  
Thomas Nail
Keyword(s):  
Metabolic Process ◽  
Social Condition ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Material Production ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
As If

This chapter argues that since the fetish of value is something produced kinetically, its alternative, communism, must also be something understood kinetically, that is, having its own form of motion. In particular, the previous chapters have aimed to show that what is fundamentally at stake in the difference between material production and fetishism is the transparency and direction of the form of motion. Only when the social form of motion is left fully uncovered by coats, mirrors, and fogs can it be collectively organized without devalorization, appropriation, and mystical domination. Communism is the material social condition in which production is treated not as if it were coming from what is produced but as a threefold metabolic process itself. The thesis of this chapter then is that previous social forms of motion have always relied on a certain degree of fetishism of this motion.

The “so-called” UGC: an updated definition of user-generated content in the age of social media

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Luis Barbosa dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Object Of Study

PurposeWhen a concept is diffusely defined or, as this article argues, “taken for granted”, it becomes very difficult to track such concept on the literature and have some continuity as researchers build on top of previous results. This article proposes a definition for user-generated content, a term that though has lost some saliency, stands in the center or the social media phenomenon, so it should not be disregarded as an object of study.Design/methodology/approachCelebrating 20 years of the concept, this research performs a multidisciplinary literature review of 61 academic articles on UGC. Through deconstruction of the acronym UGC, it builds on the present converging, conflicting and diverging definitions and/or approaches to UGC on an attempt to consolidate a broader definition that encompasses the complexities of the phenomenon in a context of consolidation of social media, to be applied to social sciences.FindingsFollowing the present analysis, UGC is defined as any kind of text, data or action performed by online digital systems users, published and disseminated by the same user through independent channels, that incur an expressive or communicative effect either on an individual manner or combined with other contributions from the same or other sources.Originality/valueThis is the first academic effort that aims to create an in-depth dialogue over the different approaches to UGC across disciplines on the social sciences field. It should help reignite interest in the acronym, which got somehow eclipsed by the broader field of social media; whilst without UGC, social media would not exist or would not have the same social impact it does in its current form. Analogously, UGC as a topic of research has been deeply affected by the emergence and consolidation of Social Media. As this debate evolves, this contribution should be helpful as a reference to operationalize UGC on future research.Peer reviewThe peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2020-0258

The Art of Social Forms and the Social Forms of Art: The Sociology-Aesthetics Nexus in Georg Simmel's Thought

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo de la Fuente
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Bond ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
The Social

This article examines the sociology-aesthetics nexus in Georg Simmel's thought. The article suggests that it is useful to divide Simmel's linking of sociology and aesthetics into three distinct types of propositions: (1) claims regarding the parallels between art and social form (the “art of social forms”); (2) statements regarding principles of sociological ordering in art and aesthetic objects (the “social forms of art”); and (3) analytical propositions where aesthetic and social factors are shown to work in combination. In the latter case, the sociology-aesthetic nexus moves beyond mere analogy. It is argued that in those instances where Simmel shows that aesthetic factors are central to the social bond the linking of aesthetics and sociology is theoretically most insightful.

scholarly journals Analysis of Individual and Social Forms of Psychological Trauma

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-298
Author(s):  
A.I. Krasilo
Keyword(s):  
Reference Group ◽  
Psychological Trauma ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Personality Research ◽  
Projective Methods ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The article attempts to determine its socio-psychological essence through the analysis of the social form of psychological trauma, as well as to identify the psychological nature of the pathological neoplasms that have arisen as a result of it, the specificity of which largely determines the methods and technology of personalistic counseling. These neoplasms are both individual psychological, including the sphere of experiences, and socio-psychological, affecting the relationship of the victims. The integration of the dominant parasitic "Ego" into the depth of the victim's personality, up to the very first level of the primary trusting relationship between the all-powerful and loving mother and a helpless child, we called the introjection of the personifier. As a result of the analysis, we come to the need for a specific restructuring of the irrational relationships of the victim with two other participants in the traumatic situation: the beneficiary, who receives personal benefits from this situation, and the reference group of the victim, who is traumatically personified by him in the image of an impersonal social personifier. The main methods of victims’ examination during the thirty years of counseling were: clinical conversation and projective methods of personality research.

scholarly journals Social Theory, Photography and the Visual Aesthetic of Cultural Modernity

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Ray
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Social Form ◽  
Photographic Image ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Realism Debate

Social theory and photographic aesthetics both engage with issues of representation, realism and validity, having crossed paths in theoretical and methodological controversies. This discussion begins with reflections on the realism debate in photography, arguing that beyond the polar positions of realism and constructivism the photographic image is essentially ambivalent, reflecting the ways in which it is situated within cultural modernity. The discussion draws critically on Simmel’s sociology of the visual to elucidate these issues and compares his concept of social forms and their development with the emergence of the photograph. Several dimensions of ambivalence are elaborated with reference to the politics and aesthetics socially engaged photography in the first half of the 20th century. It presents a case for the autonomy of the photographic as a social form that nonetheless has the potential to point beyond reality to immanent possibilities. The discussion exemplifies the processes of aesthetic formation with reference to the ‘New Vision’ artwork of László Moholy-Nagy and the social realism of Edith Tudor Hart.

Local program of surmounting of post grade: A proposed methodological for your application in the territorial development.

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-331
Author(s):  
Mercedes Vera Quintana
Keyword(s):  
Local Development ◽  
Territorial Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Program ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Branch Office ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Made In

The work had as object of study the content and application of the postgraduate programs that it is imparted in the branch office of technical sciences (FCT) of "October 10 ", of the ISPJAE (CUJAE), due to your important role in the social appropriation of the knowledge for the local development. In it a deep analysis of the process of formation of postgraduate and your particular characteristics are made in function of implementer a new pedagogic conception, all the who constitutes an instrument of value invaluable for the historical studies, logical and related prospective with this themes. This study has as objective it develops in practice educational of our professionals a sustained methodology in a local program of surmounting of Postgraduate (PLSP), by keeping in mind your level of impact and pertinence for the territory. This proposed methodological is made to this process through the investigation carried out, the who reveals your possibilities of application to validate your effects and as of the positive results, it elaborates a synthesis that constitutes the main objective by keeping in mind the more advanced focusing of the consulted literature.

Judges and defendants

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Pacchioni
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Scientific Publishers

This chapter explores how validation of new results works in science. It also looks at the peer-review process, both pros and cons, as well as scientific communication, scientific journals, and scientific publishers. We give an assessment of the total number of existing journals with peer review. Other topics discussed include the phenomenon of open access, predatory journals and their impact on contemporary science, and the market of scientific publications. Finally, we touch on degenerative phenomena, such as the market of co-authors, bogus papers, and irrelevant and wrong studies, as well as the problem and the social cost of irreproducible results.

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