Abstract
Several communication theories of science argue that discipline institutionalization in science is reflected in the increased concentration of publications in a few journals. This argument is inspected in the case of superconductivity across seven time periods and using three types of data (current publications, cited publications and highly cited publications). Given certain initial historical contingencies of the case, all three types of data support the institutionalization hypothesis of initial dispersion and later concentration. The various types of data exhibit somewhat different patterns and are useful in more fully depicting an abrupt social dislocation in the research front (World War II).
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