Abstract:

The goal of this contribution is to present the use of 'almost' big-data and meta-data from the SoReCom A.S.deRosa @-library for geo-mapping the Social Representation Theory’s diffusion over the world and its bibliometric impact.

Social Representations and Communication is a supra-disciplinary area of the social sciences, inspired by the Social Representations Theory, one of the most important theories of the social construction of knowledge and its relation to socially situated practices in the dialogue between expert and lay people knowledge and media. Originally European, it is currently a multilingual, worldwide supra-disciplinary field with a substantial body of literature.

The So.Re.Com. “A.S. de Rosa” @-library is a multiform digital environment of integrated relational data-bases conceived in the logic of the semantic web, including a series of web interfaces aimed to integrate documentation services (bibliographic repository, meta-theoretical analysis repository, intelligent @-Library) with networking (interactive web-videoconference, on-line So.Re.Com. virtual community) and research training (European/International Joint PhD “Virtual Campus”: video-courses in streaming, distant tutoring and co-tutoring, on-line trainee evaluation, etc. http://www.europhd.eu.). It includes almost 10000 references, and a vast and growing collection of bibliographic entries and a series of specific web-tools designed by Annamaria Silvana de Rosa, who is also the creator and the program director of the European/International Joint PhD in Social Representations and Communication and of the So.Re.Com. THEmatic NETwork (de Rosa, 2014a).

Based on a multi-year research program aimed at an empirical meta-theoretical analysis of the complete body of literature on Social Representations, a selection of results visualized according a technique designed ad hoc (de Rosa, 2014) to geo-map the development and the dissemination of the theory across the continents, over several generations of scientists will be presented. Comparative analyses - based on almost “big data” and “meta-data”, filed in our SoReCom “A.S. de Rosa” @-library repositories, concerning authors’ countries and institutional affiliations and bibliometric indexes (Impact Factor and SJR) will also show the author and co-authors’ inter-institutional collaborations “within” and “between” countries and continents and the scientific impact of the global theory dissemination. The implications of the “impact of the impact” will be discussed in the light of the critical debate, which still animates the community of scientists, stimulating meta-reflexive discussion and view exchanges among the members of our scientific community on the preferable publishing options and collaborative strategies in the current editorial and academic scenario. The presentation will illustrate the prototypical use of the SoReCom “A.S. de Rosa” @-library as a research tool, rather than simply as an online repository for scientific documentation.

Keywords:

Big-data, Meta-Data, SoReCom A.S. deRosa @-library, geo-mapping, bibliometric impact.