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Abstract
This article examines the thorny issue of the relationship (or lack thereof) between qualitative and quantitative approaches in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Although quantitative methods, broadly understood, played an important role in the beginnings of STS, these two approaches subsequently strongly diverged, leaving an increasing gap that only a few scholars have tried to bridge. After providing a short overview of the origins and development of quantitative analyses of textual corpora, we critically examine the state of the art in this domain. Focusing on the availability of advanced network structure analysis tools and Natural Language Processing workflows, we interrogate the fault lines between the increasing offer of computational tools in search of possible uses and the conceptual specifications of STS scholars wishing to explore the epistemic and ontological dimensions of techno-scientific activities. Finally, we point to possible ways to overcome the tension between ethnographic descriptions and quantitative methods while continuing to avoid the dichotomies (social/cognitive, organizing/experimenting) that STS has managed to discard.
Highlights
Championed by Michel Callon, co-originator with Bruno Latour of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), co-word analysis was an attempt to develop a computational approach—provocatively termed “qualitative scientometrics” (Callon, Law, & Rip, 1986)—that would be consistent with the sociology of translation
In contrast to the program of building a “science of science”—initially sketched by Price (1963) and recently respecified by Fortunato, Bergstrom, et al (2018) as an endeavor that “places the practice of science itself under the microscope, leading to a quantitative understanding of the genesis of scientific discovery, creativity, and practice and developing tools and policies aimed at accelerating scientific progress”—co-word analysis strived to provide a coherent conceptual and methodological framework to overcome the tension between ethnographic descriptions and quantitative approaches often devised to answer different questions (Callon, 2001; Callon et al, 1983)
The aforementioned natural scientists who migrated to the field of complex network analysis promoted a new understanding of large-scale real-world networks, showing that they shared a number of properties and could be analyzed using dedicated tools
Summary
Championed by Michel Callon, co-originator with Bruno Latour of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), co-word analysis was an attempt to develop a computational approach—provocatively termed “qualitative scientometrics” (Callon, Law, & Rip, 1986)—that would be consistent with the sociology of translation (as ANT is known).
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