Can networks of journal‐journal citations be used as indicators of change in the social sciences?

Aggregated journal‐journal citations can be used for mapping the intellectual organization of the sciences in terms of specialties because the latter can be considered as interreading communities. Can the journal‐journal citations also be used as early indicators of change by comparing the files for two subsequent years? Probabilistic entropy measures enable us to analyze changes in large datasets at different levels of aggregation and in considerable detail. Compares Journal Citation Reports of the Social Science Citation Index for 1999 with similar data for 1998 and analyzes the differences using these measures. Compares the various indicators with similar developments in the Science Citation Index. Specialty formation seems a more important mechanism in the development of the social sciences than in the natural and life sciences, but the developments in the social sciences are volatile. The use of aggregate statistics based on the Science Citation Index is ill‐advised in the case of the social sciences because of structural differences in the underlying dynamics.