An Exploratory Social Network Analysis of the “Invisible College” of Experimental Criminology and Criminal Justice Scholarship in the Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2011–2020

A Social Network Analysis of Publishing Networks in the “Big 5” Journals in Criminology and Criminal Justice

“…The Big 5 CCJ publishing network is highly decentralized, much like the smaller JEC network (Fenimore et al, 2021). Though this may not be obvious, it is likely intuitive.…”

“…Similar to Bichler and Malm (2008), the authors concluded that the removal of these authors who play pivotal roles could cause fragmentation within the network potentially slowing the dissemination of knowledge throughout the field. In addition, Fenimore et al (2021) suggested further research into publication networks in other journals or disciplines as well as the consideration of historical trends to examine how those social networks have evolved over time would be a useful endeavor.…”

“…However, there has been very little research examining the publishing networks for either prolific faculty or within or between top-tiered CCJ journals, particularly those that are typically highly ranked in the United States. As such, the present study is informed by the preliminary findings of Fenimore et al (2021) and extends the idea of publishing networks to a broader set of the "Big 5" CCJ journals. Specifically, the current study focuses on identifying networks of scholars in the field, the journals that the authors (and networks) publish in, along with exploring the measures of centrality and identifying key authors within these networks.…”

“…Although central figures can be identified (see Table 1), the network itself is not overly centralized or dense, having a total density of 0.004. Such decentralization can have significant implications for the fragmentation of the network (Azoulay et al, 2019;Fenimore et al, 2021). Decentralization is better displayed when examining the full publishing network's constituent components.…”

“…Most recently, Fenimore et al (2021) conducted a similar study but instead focused on the publication network evidenced in the Journal of Experimental Criminology (JEC) articles published between 2011 and 2020. Specifically, the authors examined 298 articles published by 678 authors to learn more about the “invisible college” responsible for transmitting knowledge within the field of experimental criminology.…”