Use of Social Network Analysis in Bibliometric Researches

Abstract

The impact of published works is measured and evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively by bibliometric researches. In addition to this, various findings related to scientific communication are also obtained from bibliometric studies by analyzing certain characteristics of documents or publications. In recent years, as a result of increased interest to bibliometric studies, different scientific methods and techniques are observed for bibliometrics. Social network analysis (SNA) has also taken its place in the literature as a method which is frequently used in bibliometric studies, especially in the past few years. SNA can simply be defined as examining the social structure and its impacts. This method comprehends the social structure as a network, which connects the actors and the knots of the relationships between these actor pairs. These actors can be people, as well as groups, institutions and even countries. SNA is frequently used by several disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, social psychology, communications and economics. Using SNA, researchers examine the structure of communities, try to describe the network structures, and model the existing connections by visualizing the relationships between the communities. The aim of this study is to review the use of SNA in bibliometric studies.