230176 SE A triple helix? (2012S)

The reflexive awareness that knowledge-based systems are constructed via scholarly discourse has led since the mid-1980s to several research programs in the constructivist tradition. For example; in actor-network theory (ANT) one has focused on the role of 'semiotic' action (co-words) in constructing the network; in Luhmann’s social-systems theory the focus has been on the constructed systems of communication (that can differently be codified); and in scientometrics one has focused on the construction of indicators and maps of science. From the latter perspective one needs insights in both the construction (ANT) and the constructed, and how different reconstructions in discourse guide (and potentially bias) the measurement.

University-industry-government relations, for example, can develop into a knowledge-based economy when differently coded communications (market transactions, scientific discourses, and political decisions) operate synergetically. Can this synergy be measured? How can coded communications self-organize? What room is left for translations among Luhmann’s 'operationally closed' domains of communication? Using original texts and hands-on computer classes for the generation of semantic maps, the course provides an introduction into the design of empirical research questions that draw on these different strands of constructivism.