  In addition to shaping social networks, for example, in terms of
co-authorship relations, scientific communications induce and reproduce
cognitive structures. Scientific literature is intellectually organized in
terms of disciplines and specialties; these structures are reproduced and
networked reflexively by making references to the authors, concepts and texts
embedded in these literatures. The concept of a cognitive structure was
introduced in social network analysis (SNA) in 1987 by David Krackhardt, but
the focus in SNA has hitherto been on cognition as a psychological attribute of
human agency. In bibliometrics, and in science and technology studies (STS)
more generally, socio-cognitive structures refer to intellectual organization
at the supra-individual level. This intellectual organization emerges and is
reproduced by the collectives of authors who are organized not only in terms of
inter-personal relations, but also more abstractly in terms of codes of
communication that are field-specific. Citations can serve as indicators of
this codification process.
