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The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific. The essay is a case study of a given organization in the ufologic subculture, analyzing material mainly from the 1990's, and the manner in which epistemic boundary work is made explicit. I further hint at the end to which the boundary work is means, which is mainly the hope of a growing professionalization of the ufologic field. Through this I further argue that the study points at something general, namely the importance of questions of science and legitimacy outside the boundaries of conventional science, not the least for those who are usually denied the recognition of scientific legitimacy and its fruits.

The purpose of the study is to analyse an interdisciplinary research (IDR) project in order to identify whatconstitutes a strategy of integration of disciplinary insights. Through interviews, observations andanalysis of scientific articles produced by the researchers, the study explores the processes of IDR andrelates them to psychological and sociological theories of group research. The results show thatresearchers employ an emergent strategy which they design ad hoc, and which consists of certain patternsof behaviour that allow them to navigate conflict and partially integrate their insights into the problem.The study offers a number of recommendations that might be useful to take into consideration whendesigning an IDR project.

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Environment and Planning B (forthcoming) / To be published in Environment and Planning B (2007; forthcoming). Abstract: The citation impact of Environment and Planning B can be visualized using its citation relations with journals in its environment as the links of a network. The size of the nodes is varied in correspondence to the relative citation impact in this environment. Additionally, one can correct for the effect of within-journal â selfâ -citations. The network can be partitioned and clustered using algorithms from social network analysis. After transposing the matrix in terms of rows and columns, the citing patterns can be mapped analogously. Citing patterns reflect the activity of the community of authors who publish in the journal, while being cited indicates reception. Environment and Planning B is cited across the interface between the social sciences and the natural sciences, but its authors cite almost exclusively from the domain of the Social Science Citation Index.

Networks of communication evolve in terms of reflexive exchanges. The codification of these reflections in language, that is, at the social level, can be considered as the operating system of society. Under sociologically specifiable conditions, the discursive reconstructions can be expected to make the systems under reflection increasingly knowledge-intensive. This sociological theory of communication is founded in a tradition that includes Giddens' (1979) structuration theory, Habermas' (1981) theory of communicative action, and Luhmann's (1984) proposal to consider social systems as self-organizing. The study also elaborates on Shannon's (1948) mathematical theory of communication for the formalization and operationalization of the non-linear dynamics. The development of scientific communications can be studied using citation analysis. The exchange media at the interfaces of knowledge production provide us with the evolutionary model of a Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations. The construction of the European Information Society can then be analyzed in terms of interacting networks of communication. The issues of sustainable development and the expectation of social change are discussed in relation to the possibility of a general theory of communication.

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology [JASIST] (forthcoming) / To be published in Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 57(12) (2006) 1616-1628. Abstract: Co-occurrence matrices, such as co-citation, co-word, and co-link matrices, have been used widely in the information sciences. However, confusion and controversy have hindered the proper statistical analysis of this data. The underlying problem, in our opinion, involved understanding the nature of various types of matrices. This paper discusses the difference between a symmetrical co-citation matrix and an asymmetrical citation matrix as well as the appropriate statistical techniques that can be applied to each of these matrices, respectively. Similarity measures (like the Pearson correlation coefficient or the cosine) should not be applied to the symmetrical co-citation matrix, but can be applied to the asymmetrical citation matrix to derive the proximity matrix. The argument is illustrated with examples. The study then extends the application of co-occurrence matrices to the Web environment where the nature of the available data and thus data collection methods are different from those of traditional databases such as the Science Citation Index. A set of data collected with the Google Scholar search engine is analyzed using both the traditional methods of multivariate analysis and the new visualization software Pajek that is based on social network analysis and graph theory.

New Media & Society, 8(6), 2006 (forthcoming). / To be published in New Media & Society, 8(6), 2006 (forthcoming). Abstract: Internet search engines function in a present which changes continuously. The search engines update their indices regularly, overwriting Web pages with newer ones, adding new pages to the index, and losing older ones. Some search engines can be used to search for information at the internet for specific periods of time. However, these â date stampsâ are not determined by the first occurrence of the pages in the Web, but by the last date at which a page was updated or a new page was added, and the search engineâ s crawler updated this change in the database. This has major implications for the use of search engines in scholarly research as well as theoretical implications for the conceptions of time and temporality. We examine the interplay between the different updating frequencies by using AltaVista and Google for searches at different moments of time. Both the retrieval of the results and the structure of the retrieved information erodes over time.

This dissertation research project examines how contemporary academic bioethics in the U.S. balances the aspiration to guide biomedical research and practice with the need to become an institutionally legitimate influence in society. Since its inception three decades ago, to what extent has bioethics made biomedicine more socially accountable? At the same time, to what extent has bioethics been rendered a public-relations tool for academic and corporate biomedicine? This project investigates the co-production of the legitimacy and the logic of the academic field of bioethics by examining the activities of bioethicists in three professional arenas: the establishment of an academic bioethics unit, discourse on the legal liability of institutional review boards and health care ethics consultants, and the deliberations and recommendations of a federal bioethics commission.Bioethicists' efforts to legitimate their field are viewed as competition and collaboration with other professional groups to stake out an emblematic expertise, which is then tendered to various societal clients. A case study of an academic bioethics unit was conducted to reveal how the unit's efforts to secure material resources and organizational legitimacy shape the center's intellectual output, drawing on the unit's archival documents and interviews with the unit's director, faculty, staff, and graduate students. Discourse analysis was used to explore what anticipated legal liability reveals about the legitimacy of expertise claims and the shaping of those claims. The proceedings of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission related to the human stem cell research debate were used to examine the boundary-work conducted by the commission at the borders between science and ethics, and between ethics and public policy.The research described here shifts attention in the budding sociology of bioethics from clinical to academic bioethics, and highlights the institutional and power relationships amongst bioethics, biomedicine, and public policy. This study also contributes to the fields of higher education studies and science and technology studies, where ethics, and the relationship between legitimacy and expertise, have not been fully explored. The findings presented here provide useful insight into the challenges and opportunities bioethicists face in cultivating socially responsible biomedical science and technology.

Uppsatsen syftar till att analysera politiska aktörers agerande för att framställa sin hållning inför folkomröstningen om kärnraften 1980 som trovärdig och rationell. Studien undersöker historiska källor i form av informationstätt opinionsmaterial samt statliga utredningar och propositioner med anknytning till folkomröstningen. Undersökningen är baserad på den teoribildning inom teknik- och vetenskapssociologi som kallas science and technology studies – STS. Det analytiska verktyg som källmaterialet analyseras utifrån är begreppet energisäkerhet. Undersökningen visar att en stor del av debatten som förs i opinionsmaterialet kan förklaras i termer av energisäkerhet. Aktörernas argumentation angående kärnkraften och de alternativa energikällornas fördelar och nackdelar tydliggörs och förklaras. Dessutom visar studien hur opinionsmaterialet förhåller sig till de av staten framtagna beslutsunderlagen.